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“At Her Special Request, Mr. Frog Played for Her, not too 
Fast, on His Elegant Flute'’ 


I’age 5 




Copy right f 1916, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 

All rights reserved 



AUG 10 1916 




©ci,A4;i7i8a 
'> ■ 1-0 / •- 


ANNE RHODES 

FAITHFUL FRIEND, GOOD FELLOW, AND RARE SOUL 



NOTE 


The author is especially indebted to Mr, Read 
Hersey for valuable suggestions and criticism in 
the preparation of this book. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I Mrs. Elephant’s Moonlight Dance . . i 

II Old Lady Wildcat’s Feast 7 

III Mrs. Frog Changes Her Dress . . . . 12 

IV Mr. Mocking-Bird and His Prize Song . 22 

V Mr. Raccoon’s Oyster Supper .... 30 

VI Mrs. Goose and Her Swamp Cousins . . 41 

VII Mrs. Fox Steals One Egg Too Many . . 52 

VIII Why Mrs. Frog Must Live in the Swamps 57 

IX The Scare-Man Tree 62 

X Mrs. Fox and the Eider-Duck Eggs . . 68 

XI Sunny Gourd and Lady Trumpet-Vine . 73 

XII The End of the Timber Wolf .... 84 

XIII The Travels of Prince Flamingo ... 95 

XIV Prince Flamingo’s Triumphant Return . 109 

XV Mother Fox’s Hospital 121 

XVI Why Mrs. Crow Is Black 13 1 

XVII Mrs. Muskrat’s Poor Relations . . .138 

XVIII Mr. Wild Goose and Mrs. Grebe . . .147 

XIX Baby Fox and Mrs. Bear 157 

XX Christmas Eve 164 

XXI Mother Rabbit’s Advice to Her Babies . 171 
XXII The Mice and Baby Stork 177 

XXIII Mrs. Bob-White and the Hunting Dog . 183 

XXIV Mrs. Polar Bear’s Adventure . . . .194 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


“At her special request, Mr. Frog played for her, 

not too fast, on his elegant flute” . Frontispiece ^ 


FACING 

PAGE 

“ ‘Listen, listen, listen,’ said the mocking-bird” 28*^ 

“While the gay old foxes were in the next room, 

Mrs. Rabbit slipped out” 5^*^ 


“Off through the big woods the little foxes trotted > 

gaily behind their mother” 72 


“His mother was in a great state of delight over 

him, of course, and his stately father eyed ^ 
him with approval” 98 


“The birds met in a great meeting. Something y 
had to be done” 136 

/ 

“Fireflame gasped out his news in one breath” . 162'^ 


“They grabbed the baby stork and dragged him 
down to the edge of the roof” .... 


182 


/ 


FOREST FRIENDS 




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FOREST FRIENDS 


I 

MRS. ELEPHANT’S MOONLIGHT DANCE 

I T was a beautiful evening in the forest, and un- 
der the moonlight there was a great gathering 
of friends. Mr. and Mrs. Elephant, and the 
Kangaroos, the Foxes, and the handsome Leop- 
ards, even sprightly little Miss Lynx, and a num- 
ber of the aristocratic jungle Deer were seated, all 
in a great circle, around the pleasant pool which 
shone in the moonlight, and displayed the loveliest 
of lilies afloat upon its surface. 

“Then, it is decided,” said the venerable Mr. 
Tapir. “We are, my friends, going to contest for 
a dancing prize. It is felt that such an entertain- 
ment will relieve the rather tedious monotony of 
our evenings in this lovely spot. 

“One week from to-night there will be the finest 
party we have ever given. No expense is to be 
spared. Music will be supplied by the celebrated 
company of Baboons and Macaws; and the ladies 


2 FOREST FRIENDS 

will adjourn, forthwith, as a committee on refresh- 
ments.” 

Mr. Tapir went on at great length, for all the 
animals loved to hear him talk, and he loved to 
hear himself. He had been to London. He 
knew how things ought to be done. So he said it 
all over several times, but he always ended with, 
‘‘and the ladies will adjourn forthwith,” which 
beautiful words struck the animals as the finest 
they had ever heard. 

“What oratory! Such a flow of London 
speech!” they whispered. And the lovely Miss 
Giraffe broke down and cried. Such is the 
power of eloquence. 

Great jealousies ensued, however, for Mrs. 
Kangaroo let it be known straightway that the 
prize was hers for sure. No one could dance as 
she could. She had only to straighten her waist, 
lift her chin, and give a leap. It was her specialty. 

“When it comes to grace and speed,” Mrs. 
Leopard remarked, “there is something in my mo- 
tion which is utterly lacking to the rest of you.” 

Now, Mrs. Elephant kept quiet. She knew 
what they thought of her. She was always re- 
ferred to as “that good, solid, easy-going person” 
unless her friends were spiteful, when they did not 


MRS. ELEPHANT’S DANCE 


3 

hesitate to call her “that ungainly old cow of an 
elephant.” She knew their ways and spite. 

“But I shall get that prize,” she grunted, as she 
trudged to her handsome, roomy home under the 
chocolate trees. Nor did she feel less determined 
in the cool bright morning, when, as a rule, the 
resolutions of the night before grow pale. Im- 
mediately she put her housekeeping into the hands 
of her sister-in-law, who was young and willing. 

“I have much to do,” she said. 

Then she set out to find her friends, the bull- 
frogs. They would pipe their tunes all day in the 
shade, and she would practise her steps. 

It was hard at first, but soon she devised a won- 
derful dance. Up and down and around she went 
all day, and most all night. But. she kept her do- 
ings a secret; and it was well she did, for all the 
animals would only have laughed at her had they 
seen her flopping around on the edge of the bull- 
frogs’ pond. 

The night of the dance came. The elegance of 
the costumes and the abundance of the refresh- 
ments were a delight. 

It was a little game of sly Mrs. Fox’s to urge 
everybody to eat as much as possible, and this she 
would do with the sweetest smile. 


4 


FOREST FRIENDS 


“Oh, do eat another bunch of bananas,” she 
would say to Mrs. Elephant; for she wanted every- 
body to overeat except herself. Then they could 
not dance, she knew, and she would get the prize if 
she showed only her wonderful walking steps. 

But the animals guessed her scheme. They 
only thanked her, and stroked their dresses or went 
off into corners to try their steps. 

It was a brave show, and after a few had risen 
to the floor and danced their steps, favor was 
plainly directed to the lithe and lovely Mrs. 
Leopard. 

“Just wait for Mrs. Kangaroo,” was whispered 
from one to another. “She’s wonderful, you 
know.” 

Then Mrs. Kangaroo came forth. Yes, it was 
marvelous what she could accomplish. First she 
strutted high and proud, then she bounded up and 
down, and finally made a great leap ; but it was a 
leap before she looked, for what did she do but 
jump right into the lily pond, ker-splash! 

Great embarrassment seized the company, and 
the less polite, such as the monkeys, simply yelled 
in derision. 

“Mrs. Elephant! Mrs. Elephant!” was now the 
cry. 


MRS. ELEPHANTS DANCE 


5 

‘^Yes, yes, Mrs. Elephant!’’ came from all sides; 
for the animals, already amused by Mrs. Kanga- 
roo’s unfortunate conclusion, were ready to be 
boisterous. They could roar at Mrs. Elephant if 
they wanted to; she was so thick-skinned, as they 
thought, that you could never hurt her feelings 
anyway. 

But Mrs. Elephant was very modest, and a trifle 
grand. Besides, she was all polished and trimmed 
in a manner most affecting. All that afternoon 
her sister-in-law had stood in the water with her, 
smoothing down her dress and rubbing her head; 
and two simple palm leaves behind her ears, with a 
little rope of moon-flowers garlanded over her 
placid forehead gave her a regal aspect which the 
animals were surprised and delighted to note. 

‘‘How thin she’s grown! How do you suppose 
she did it?” they gasped. 

Then Mrs. Elephant danced. 

At her special request, Mr. Frog played for her, 
not too fast, on his elegant flute. But scarcely 
had she taken her first two steps when the orchestra 
struck up that grand old march. Tigers Bold and 
Monkeys Gay, which, as you know, would set any- 
body a-marching even if they had nowhere to go. 

Waving her splendid arms to the sky, and mak- 


6 


FOREST FRIENDS 


ing the most wonderful bows, flapping her ears and 
curling and pointing her trunk, all to the tune of 
the music, she was, as the eloquent Mrs. Tapir was 
moved to say, ‘‘as majestic as the night.” 

At her signal, when she knew she had captivated 
the audience, the music changed, and she came 
tripping toward them with open arms and the 
pinkest, biggest smile the world has ever seen. 
She begged them all to strike up the chorus ; and 
suddenly, without knowing what they were about 
(for such is the way with an audience, once the 
hard-worked artist has enraptured his fellow- 
beings), they were all shouting the stirring words: 

Tm the jungle dandy, O, 

You’re the zebra’s daughter, 

Come an’ kiss me, handy, O, 

Nuts and orange water. 

Of course she took the prize. And all she 
would say, or all, indeed, that can be got out of her 
to this day, about it is : 

“Practise, my dears, practise. No, I have never 
done it since, nor would I think of trying. I only 
wished to feel in my old age that I had accom- 
plished something. The race, as wise men have 
said, is not to the swift. Determination and care- 
ful, unremitting practise: that’s what is wanted.” 


II 

OLD LADY WILDCAT’S FEAST 

S ister alligator and Miss Mud- 

Turtle had always been exceedingly good 
friends, and always helped each other out 
of trouble. One day Miss Mud-Turtle flopped 
over to Sister Alligator in great excitement 
‘Xook here, my friend, I’m going to have a pic- 
nic over on the other side of your big pond, and I 
want you to help me!” she said. 

‘Well, I’m right here to do what I can for you. 
Just tell me of what service I may be,” replied Sis- 
ter Alligator, as she lazily opened her sleepy eyes. 

“You are a wonderfully good neighbor,” de- 
clared Miss Mud-Turtle, “and I was just wonder- 
ing if you would mind carrying all my young 
friends, the swamp turtles, across the pond on your 
big back? It would take you only a minute to 
swim us across, and if we tried to go around the 
pond, I am afraid Old Lady Wildcat might catch 
us on the way. You know she is always trying to 
get the best of us mud-turtles.” 

7 


8 


FOREST FRIENDS 


Sister Alligator’s sleepy eyes opened wider. 

“I have the very idea!” she exclaimed. “Just 
send Old Lady Wildcat an invitation to come to 
the picnic. Then I’ll swim out into the pond and 
dive under and drown her, for all of you mud- 
turtles can swim.” 

Miss Mud-Turtle laughed so hard she had to 
wipe the tears from her eyes. 

“Sister Alligator, your sleepy old head is not on 
your body for nothing! You surely have some 
brains! That is the very idea for disposing of Old 
Lady Wildcat! I’ll make a carpet out of her soft 
hide for my young friends to play on before the 
sun goes down.” 

So Miss Mud-Turtle sent an invitation to Old 
Lady Wildcat, all written on a grape leaf in grand 
style. It told of the big dinner they were to have, 
and where it was to be, and that Sister Alligator 
would carry them all across the pond on her back. 

When Old Lady Wildcat got the invitation she 
mewed to Mr. ’Possum, who had brought it, that 
she would be there all right, but that they must be 
very careful when they carried her over the pond, 
as her rheumatism was bad. 

Then, when Mr. ’Possum went to take her mes- 
sage to Miss Mud-Turtle, Old Lady Wildcat 


OLD LADY WILDCAT’S FEAST 


9 


laughed so loudly she had to hide her face with her 
paws for fear Miss Mud-Turtle would hear her. 
She was just planning how to get the best of Miss 
Mud-Turtle. 

“Whenever I dine with low-down mud-turtles 
and alligators it is time for me to lose this fine coat 
of mine. I suppose they forget who I am! Hal 
What would all my grandchildren think of their 
grandmother dining with mud-turtles!” 

Then she began laughing again, and her grand- 
children, who were sleeping away up in the 
branches of a big pine-tree, came down to see what 
had tickled her so. 

Old Lady Wildcat was holding her sides and 
dancing about in glee. 

“Oh, children,” she laughed, “we’re going to 
have some fun! Old Miss Mud-Turtle is trying to 
get your grandmother to dine with her across the 
pond. Get yourselves ready for the big feast, and 
I’ll start over on Sister Alligator’s back, while you 
all go on ahead and eat up the dinner.” 

“Hooray!” cried the young wildcats. “We’ll , 
slip along behind to see how you get started, and 
then we’ll run around the pond and get the dinner 
before Miss Mud-Turtle and Sister Alligator can 


come. 


lO 


FOREST FRIENDS 


So Old Lady Wildcat loped down to the pond, 
and there were Miss Mud-Turtle and Sister Alli- 
gator. All the little mud-turtles climbed on the 
alligator raft. 

“Be very careful, Mrs. Wildcat,” Sister Alli- 
gator cautioned, “not to wet your feet. You 
might take cold.” 

Old Lady Wildcat smiled pleasantly and 
jumped; and then away swam Sister Alligator. 

It was fine riding till they got to about the mid- 
dle of the pond. Then Sister Alligator stopped. 

“I’m very sorry,” she said politely, “but I have 
the cramps, ooh! ooh! I must drop to the bottom 
of the pond.” 

And down she dived. 

But Old Lady Wildcat was too quick for her. 
She sprang up into the air and caught a grapevine, 
climbed up on it, and finally got to land. Then 
she ran through the woods to where her grandchil- 
dren were, and there they had the greatest feast 
you ever saw. 

Finally, just as Sister Alligator and Miss Mud- 
Turtle with all the children came in sight. Old 
Lady Wildcat climbed up into a tree and laughed 
and mewed at them. 

And this is what she said : 


OLD LADY WILDCAT’S FEAST 


11 


“Never try to fool folks, Sister Alligator and 
Miss Mud-Turtle, by plotting against them, for 
you’ll find that you are only fooling yourselves!” 


Ill 

MRS. FROG CHANGES HER DRESS 

A lso, it is said that ages and ages ago Mrs. 
Frog and her family dwelt at the bottom 
of the sea.” 

^‘In the ocean?” queried surprised little King- 
fisher, who was listening to all that Professor 
Crane could tell him. 

‘‘Yes, in the great salt water,” replied Professor 
Crane, as he shifted his position and stood on the 
other leg. “Far deeper it was, too, than this 
pond.” 

For the learned Crane and little Kingfisher were 
spending a quiet hour under the shade of the wild 
orange trees, on the shores of a narrow lagoon. It 
was a hot, still day, and they were each of them 
resting after a morning’s exertion. Professor 
Crane was always a talker after dinner, for he 
knew much and was sociable. He could discourse 
by the hour if any one would listen; and if nobody 
was disposed to heed him, he would meditate by 
himself. But just now he had an alert and inquisi- 


12 


MRS. FROG CHANGES HER DRESS 13 

tive companion, for if Kingfisher loved two things 
in the world, one was to hear all the scandal, and 
the other was to pick feathers out of the back of a 
crow as he flew. 

But apparently Professor Crane had decided to 
tell no more, for he rested his long bill on his 
breast, and let his eyes close to a narrow slit. This 
made him look infinitely wiser than he really was ; 
but like a good many talkative persons he knew 
the value of waiting to be asked. 

Kingfisher eyed his friend earnestly and opened 
his mouth several times to speak, but shut it again. 
Finally, however, thinking that Professor Crane 
had forgotten what he was saying, he piped out: 

^^How strange!” 

And that stirred the venerable scholar to resume 
his narrative. 

^‘Yes, strange indeed; yet nothing so wonderful 
after all. Nothing is past belief if you have 
studied long enough, and I have had signal ad- 
vantages. It was, you may be pleased to know, a 
relative of mine, a Doctor Stork, who had perched 
all his life on the chimney of a great university in 
Belgium, who told me the truth about the frog. 
Of course, that is nothing to you, as you are not 
versed in the universities. But that’s not your 


14 


FOREST FRIENDS 


fault. At any rate, as I was saying, Mrs. Frog 
lived in the sea and had a palace of coral and 
pearl. She was very much larger than she is now, 
and was of a totally different color. She was red 
as the reddest coral, and her legs were as yellow 
as gold. Very striking, she was; and her voice 
was a deep contralto. But she was never content 
with her home, and couldn’t decide whether she 
wanted to be in or out of the water. That’s the 
way with all inferior characters. Men, you ob- 
serve, are given to such traits of indecision, never 
being content where they are. 

‘^Mrs. Frog, for all the pleasures of her coral 
hall, found it pleasant to sit on the rocks and stare 
at the land. And the more she stared, the more 
she wished to go ashore. But she was built for 
swimming, you know, and, for the life of her, she 
couldn’t get over the sands.” 

‘‘How on earth did she learn?” put in King- 
fisher. 

“Necessity and, as I might say, emergency,” Pro- 
fessor Crane replied. “One day she let the waves 
carry her high and dry on the beach, trusting to 
another wave to take her back. But the other 
wave never came. She had come on the very last 
roller of the high tide. By and by she saw two 


MRS. FROG CHANGES HER DRESS 15 

eyes glaring at her from under the grass. It was 
probably a snake that was after her. Then, be- 
cause she had to, she got back to the water. That’s 
the way, you know. What folks have to do they 
generally accomplish, but until they’re frightened 
into it they generally stand still.” 

‘‘True, true,” Kingfisher agreed. “I was afraid 
to fly when I was a baby. The last to leave the 
nest was myself, and finally my father pushed me 
out. I flew, of course, and never knew how I 
learned.” 

“Same with Mrs. Frog,” added Professor Crane. 
“She got there. But the knowledge that she could 
hop if she wanted to was her undoing. She was 
never at home when she was wanted, and if Mr. 
Bullfrog had not watched the eggs in her place, 
there would have been no more frogs to talk about. 
At last he grew as neglectful as she was, however, 
and all the frogs caught the madness. That’s 
when they took to tying their eggs up in packages 
and leaving them to care for themselves.” 

• “How careless!” Kingfisher thought, as he re- 
called the hours that his wife spent sitting on hers, 
and what enemies would get them if he did not 
perch on guard. 

“But the frogs got all the dry land they wanted. 


i6 


FOREST FRIENDS 


The sea turned itself into one great wave and 
spilled all over the mountains, you know. Yes, 
that was the time the moon changed from a golden 
dish to a silver platter. Some say it was from a 
pumpkin to a green cheese. But the weight of 
authority, the preponderance of learning is on the 
side of the silver platter.” 

“The preponderance of what?” interrupted 
Kingfisher. For although he knew what Profes- 
sor Crane meant, he felt it was a compliment to 
him to ask for a repetition of these handsome 
words. 

But Professor Crane went right on, which is the 
proper thing to do. 

“And when the water went back where it be- 
longed, it went farther than ever before. Half of 
the earth was high and dry that formerly had been 
under water. And Mrs. Frog was on that half.” 

“How terrible!” his listener exclaimed. “And 
how uncomfortable she must have been!” 

“I should say she was!” Professor Crane agreed. 
“It was hotter, too, than fire. In fact she was 
destined to spend a long time regretting her pre- 
vious state, while she sweltered, high and dry. 

“The desert, you know, is the home of compe- 
tition.” 


MRS. FROG CHANGES HER DRESS 17 

Professor Crane waited for this observation to 
sink in, for he felt that it was one of the best he had 
ever made. 

mean that it is the worst place to live because 
everybody else wants you to die. That’s what 
competition is, my friend Kingfisher. And on the 
sandy desert it is that way. 

“There wasn’t drinking water enough to go 
around, and the plants and trees, because they 
could burrow down and find a few drops, had the 
best of it. They stored it up, too, inside of them- 
selves, and then, to keep people from breaking in 
for a drink, they threw out every kind of needle 
and thorn you can think of. 

“But they grew beautiful flowers, and Mrs. 
Frog said that these reminded her of corals. The 
cactus flowers were indeed her only consolation, 
and she would sit under them all day. She didn’t 
dare to hop out on the sands, for the birds were sure 
to see her and eat her, and so she took to running 
her tongue out and catching what she could in that 
way.” 

“Very convenient, I’m sure,” Kingfisher ob- 
served. “I wish I could do it myself. It would 
save me much gadding about.” 

“Yes, my young friend, it would; but you’d 


i8 


FOREST FRIENDS 


never be patient enough. And Mrs. Frog is just 
so much patience on a lily pad. It’s her whole 
life. 

“She learned patience, you may be sure, on that 
desert, and her enemies were so many that she 
feared for her life every time she ventured out 
from under the cactus blossom. So she only went 
out at night and was, even then, careful about get- 
ting into the moonshine. 

“Poor thing; she nearly starved to death, and 
grew thiner and thinner until her beautiful figure 
was gone. Then her skin shriveled into creases, 
and she finally got the leathery look that she has 
to-day.” 

“And how did she change her color?” King- 
fisher begged to know. 

“I don’t think I care to tell you,” said Professor 
Crane, with a sudden change in his voice. 

This produced great surprise in little Mr. King- 
fisher, for he never knew the Professor to with- 
hold anything. Usually he was only too eager to 
load you with facts. So the small bird kept si- 
lence very respectfully, not knowing just what to 
say. 

“You are yourself very saucy, and full of your 
foolishness,” the wise Crane finally observed, “and 


MRS. FROG CHANGES HER DRESS 19 

you are not likely to believe what I tell you. But 
you can make what you choose of it, and it may do 
you good to know.” 

Professor Crane cleared his throat, and wagged 
his long bill up and down several times, much as a 
truly bearded professor strokes his chin in deliver- 
ing the hardest part of his lecture. Then he 
coughed, for that is effective, too, and changed 
from his left foot to his right. 

“Well,” he resumed, “she prayed to the Man in 
the Moon, as that was the only thing that she knew 
to do, and begged him to give her a bog. 

“ ‘Just a bog, or a piece of a swamp, Mr. Moon,’ 
she kept saying, ‘even a few inches of water will 
do,’ and after she had done this to every full moon 
for a year, and nothing had come of it, she changed 
her tune.” 

Kingfisher looked startled. He had personally 
the greatest respect for the Moon. He had heard 
much evil about it, however, and was not a little 
cautious of expressing his views on the subject. 

“What did she beg of the Moon after that?” was 
all he could say. 

“She had concluded that the Man in the Moon 
was unable to give her a bog, even if he wanted to, 
so she decided to start out and find one. That was 


20 


FOREST FRIENDS 


the beginning of the end of her troubles. She 
begged Mr. Moon to show her how to get there, 
when she came to the point of starting, and she only 
added, ^Give me a green dress, Mr. Moon, Mr. 
Moonl’ And that’s exactly what the Man in the 
Moon did for her. The frogs made their journey 
in a body, on the darkest night of the year. But 
there was just one Moonbeam and it was on duty 
for this one thing, to show the frogs how to go.” 

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Kingfisher. “Won- 
derful! But which night of the year was it?” 
Mr. Kingfisher thought of several things he might 
do, if he knew which night was the blackest. 

“The darkest night of all, my dear friend, is the 
one when you change the color of your life.” 

This silenced Mr. Kingfisher; and Professor 
Crane, perceiving that the words had taken effect, 
concluded his story. 

“That single Moonbeam Angel was very beauti- 
ful and powerful. For, just as the frogs came at 
last to the valleys and found a deep swamp where 
they could forever be happy, with water or land 
as they wanted. Moonbeam touched them farewell, 
and their dresses turned to russet and green.” 

There were no remarks to be made, for Profes- 
sor Crane clapped his bill together exactly as 


MRS. FROG CHANGES HER DRESS 21 


though he brought the book of history together 
with a bang; and he ruffled his wings as if he were 
about to fly off. 

So little Kingfisher, not knowing just how to 
thank the great bird, said something about going 
home to supper. 

“Just so, just so,” clacked Professor Crane. 

And the two birds flew up and away. Kingfisher 
to his nest in the tree-top, and the learned Profes- 
sor to his books and studies. 


IV 


MR. MOCKING-BIRD AND HIS PRIZE SONG 
VERY little squirrel, who was but a 



month old, was looking out across an 


1 jL orchard from the top of a high tree. It 
was early morning and the sun had just risen, so 
that everything was sparkling with dew, and the 
air was cool and sweet to breathe. 

He rubbed his fat cheeks with his paws and sat 
very straight on his haunches, looking his best and 
trying to sing, for he wanted very much to say 
something by way of letting the world know what 
he thought of it. Feeling as he did, so exceed- 
ingly happy, he wished to join the lovely sounds 
around him, for birds were singing everywhere, 
and even the river at the foot of the orchard had a 
song. 

So the little squirrel made all the noise he could, 
which is just what the children do when they have 
all day to play and the sky is blue and clear above 
the fields. 

But just as he paused for breath he heard his 


22 


MR. MOCKING-BIRD 


23 


words repeated from another tree. Somebody 
was mocking him, word for word, and making a 
very ridiculous thing of his happy little song. 
His tail bristled with anger, and he ran higher in 
the tree to get a better view of his neighbor. He 
would teach another squirrel to mock him! No 
living creature could he see, but he heard a blue- 
bird call, and then, as if to insult him, came again 
his own exultant chirp, chirp-chee, chee, chee, 
chee, and after it a perfect flood of laughter, just 
like the silly notes of the little owl who sits up all 
night to laugh at the moon. 

Indeed, the squirrel was more puzzled than 
angry now, and he rushed home to his mother in 
the highest branches of the walnut-tree, and as fast 
as he could chatter he told her all about it. She 
was a very busy woman, Mrs. Squirrel, and she 
was too much engaged in her sweeping and making 
of beds to stop and talk with her little son. More- 
over, she did not know exactly what to say; so she 
told him to find the wise old woodchuck under the 
hill, who was lazy and good-natured and fond of 
company, and to inquire of him just why the mock- 
ing-bird should repeat everything that was said or 
sung. 

So off to the foot of the orchard and the old rail- 


24 


FOREST FRIENDS 


fence the little squirrel scampered, and, as he ex- 
pected, the good old woodchuck was lounging by 
his door-step, blinking at the sunlight and munch- 
ing clover. 

“There’s nothing here for you,” the woodchuck 
muttered with his mouth full. “You’ve come to 
the wrong house for breakfast.” 

“No, no,” the squirrel hastened to say. “You 
do not know my errand. I’ve come to ask you 
why the mocking-bird is so fond of mocking. 
Has he no song of his own? And why should he 
laugh at me?” 

Poor little squirrel was so full of anger, as he 
spoke his mind, that he puffed and bristled might- 
ily, and the fat woodchuck burst out laughing. 

“So he jeered at you, did he? Why, that’s his 
business ; but you mustn’t mind the things he says. 
He’s really a very fine fellow, Mr. Mocking-bird, 
and everybody loves him.” 

Then the woodchuck brushed the clover aside 
and came out a little farther into the sun to warm 
his back, for he was very wise, and he knew that 
the sun on the back was good for the shoulder- 
blades. 

“Mr. Mocking-bird,” he began, “is a great art- 
ist. That’s why he can say what he thinks and do 


MR. MOCKING-BIRD 


25 

what he wants to do. And once, in the long ago, 
he taught all the songs in the world to the birds. 
You see it was this way: 

“The thrush and the robin and the catbird fell to 
disputing about their songs. And all the noisy 
blackbirds and the little wrens, even the crows 
with their ugly notes, entered the discussion, with 
results which I can’t describe. Oh, it lasted years 
and years, and every bird thought he was the best 
singer in the world and tried to sing everything he 
ever heard, whether it was his own song or not; 
and at last the confusion was so terrible that if the 
robin flew North, everybody thought he was a 
finch, and when he came back, he made a noise like 
a wild goose.” 

“Impossible!” exclaimed the squirrel. 

“Not at all. That’s the way with singers the 
world over, until they are sharply taught where 
they belong. Few people are content with their 
own talents. My own family is the only modest 
and unassuming one that I know of. We are con- 
tent to dig and eat and sit in the sun. We have 
never trained our voices or gone in for dancing. 
Very different from your family, young Mr. Squir- 
rel, which is frivolous and noisy. But you must 
pardon that — it was a mere observation. As I 


26 


FOREST FRIENDS 


was saying, the only way to decide the business and 
restore order was to hold a meeting of all the birds, 
with a few good judges of music on hand to decide 
the question once for all. 

“The adder, being deaf, was the chairman. 
Deafness, they say, is the prime requirement in a 
critic, for it allows him time to think. And the 
buzzard, also, was there to award the prizes. A 
peculiar choice, you might say, but he has a horrid 
way of putting things and he wears a cut-away 
coat. 

“So the day came. The woods and the orchards 
were full of birds, singing and calling and scream- 
ing and whistling. Everybody was too much ex- 
cited to think of eating, and every bush held a 
crowd of contestants. It was orderly enough, 
however, when the contest began." 

“The wood dove began the concert. Very soft 
and sweet. It always makes me think of my 
giddy youth and my first wife to hear the wood 
dove. She’s really a little bit too sad. 

“Then they came on, each one in turn. It was a 
fine cherry-tree where they sang, and it was so full 
of blossoms that you could hardly see the perform- 
ers. Poor little Miss Wren was scared to death. 
She tried to sing, but all she could say was. Tie me 


MR. MOCKING-BIRD 


27 


up, tie me up, and she fell off the branch with 
fright. One redbird, and the tanagcr, and that 
whole gay family of buntings — ^what a brilliant, 
showy lot! But they were very clear and high and 
full of little scraps of tune in their singing. More 
suited to the hedgerow, however, than the concert 
room. 

“The best, to my thinking, was the thrush. You 
can hear him any evening down there in the alder 
bushes. He’s very retiring and elegant. They 
say he sings of India and the lotus flowers. It’s 
something sad and far away that he just remem- 
bers. I’m not much of a hand at poetry myself, 
and I personally have a great fondness for the 
crows. Good, sharp, business men, the crows, and 
although they are not strictly musical, they appeal 
to me. You see, we have a great deal in common, 
the crows and myself, by way of looking after the 
young corn. We meet, as you might say, in a busi- 
ness way. 

“Well, the contest was long and lively. The 
bluebird and rice-birds, and even the orioles per- 
formed in wonderful fashion ; and at last, when it 
was all over, the prize was never given at all. For 
right out of the clear sky came the mocking-bird, 
who had kept himself out of the contest until the 


28 


FOREST FRIENDS 


end, and after he lighted on a branch of that 
cherry-tree and began his song, there was simply 
nothing to be said. It dawned on the whole lot of 
them that they had sung their notes wrong! Yes, 
young Mr. Squirrel, fine and noisy as it all had 
been, not one of these birds had sung the tune his 
father had taught him! Just by trying to outsing 
each other all those years, their own sweet notes 
were injured. And only the mocking-bird could 
remember every lovely song as it should be done. 
Even the thrush had to admit as much. The 
adder crawled of! in disgust, and the buzzard grew 
positively insulting in his remarks. He said he 
had been detained for nothing. 

^Listen, listen, listen,’ said the mocking-bird, 
and straightway he sang like the nonpareil, and 
then you would have thought him the oriole. It 
was enough to break your heart, for it was just the 
lovely old songs that the birds used to sing. 

^‘And what do you suppose came of it all?” 
added the worthy woodchuck after he had wiped 
a tear from his eyes, for thoughts of the old days 
made him sad. 

“What do you suppose the other birds agreed 
upon? They decided never to raise the burning 
question again, and they begged the mocking-bird 



‘‘‘Listen, Listen, Listen,’ Said the Mocking-im rd” 

I 'age ’S 





• \ 

^ * 




¥ 




f 


• « 

I 


* 


• • # 


7 






MR. MOCKING-BIRD 


29 


to teach them their songs once more. That’s why 
the robins fly South in the fall of the year, along 
with the other songsters. They want their chil- 
dren to hear the mocking-bird. Yes, Mr. Squir- 
rel, I have that on authority. There’s nothing so 
fine for the singer as a good start and a good 
teacher. And even the robin, who is full of con- 
ceit, has admitted to me that he feels at times the 
need of a little correction. He hates to go North 
without a few lessons from that wonderful teacher, 
the mocking-bird.” 

With all this, little Mr. Squirrel was greatly en- 
tertained and was at a loss how to thank Mr. 
Woodchuck; but he was spared the necessity of it, 
for the good warm sun and the sound of his own 
voice had induced Mr. Woodchuck into a pleasant 
sleep, and he was already snoring on his doorstep. 
Little Squirrel tiptoed away and ran home in glee. 
He felt that he had learned all that there was to 
learn in the wide world. 

An3rway, he had learned what he wanted to 
know, and that is the best of learning. 


V 

MR. RACCOON’S OYSTER SUPPER 

I T was the loveliest of moonlight nights in the 
early autumn when word was carried from 
house to house that Mrs. Raccoon would give 
an oyster supper. 

There was Mrs. Coon herself, the present Mr. 
Coon, and four little Coons. At the upper farm 
lived several branches of the family — uncles and 
aunts and their respective children. For the 
Coons, as a lot, lived mainly on the farmsteads, or 
near to them; for, as Mrs. Ringtail Coon, the old- 
est of them, always declared: “It is altogether 
wiser to keep in touch with civilization.” By 
which she meant it was wise to live as near as pos- 
sible to the orchards and the corn-fields, and the 
good things which farmers keep planting every 
year, apparently for the especial benefit of just such 
persons as Mr. Coon and Mr. Crow. 

“And it is wonderful what a variety of good 
things you can find to eat if you can run and climb 
30 


MR. RACCOON’S OYSTER SUPPER 31 

trees and dig in the ground,” Mr. Coon would add, 
‘‘especially if you live where they are very gener- 
ous in the gathering, and you can have the best 
of apples and pears and the sweet corn to add to 
your table.” 

So it was altogether best to stick as close to the 
haunts of mankind as possible, if you could do so 
without foregoing the pleasures of the river and 
the woodland. 

The great river, be it said, which was sluggish 
and muddy, contained a thousand things which the 
Coons declared in rather snobbish fashion were 
not to their taste. They wouldn’t go fishing if they 
could. But the fat mussels which lived in the 
mud-banks were exactly to Mr. and Mrs. Coon’s 
liking. And to open them is not difficult for a 
Coon who has once learned the trick. 

“That’s what your wonderful, black fingernails 
are for,” Mr. Coon always told the children when 
he taught them to open oysters. “You need only 
give the joint of the thing a sharp bite, and pull 
out that tough bit of meat at the end, and then with 
your nails you can pry the shell right open.” 

The ability to do this was a matter of pride to 
the Coons, for they knew of no one else who could 
open oysters. Like many people who may excel 


32 


FOREST FRIENDS 


in a particular art, they fancied that they were the 
only adepts in the world. 

< “But there’s where they are mistaken,” Mr. Fox 
would laugh, whenever he heard of the Coons and 
their oyster suppers. For he knew of some one 
else who could get the juicy meat out of those 
shells, although it was not himself. 

“I really pity their ignorance,” he would say. 
“If they ever went abroad in the daytime they’d 
see a thing or two, and maybe they’d learn that 
there are wiser folks in the world than themselves.” 

This was an unfair thrust at the Coons, for their 
habit of sleeping most of the day should not be laid 
against them. The world is wisely divided into 
day workers and night workers anyway, and Mr. 
Coon, for his part, always put down such criticism 
by asking what on earth would happen if every- 
body rushed to his meals at the same identical mo- 
ment. 

And in this Mr. Coon revealed the gentility of 
his nature, for he was a person of manners, and 
believed not only in a six o’clock dinner, but kept 
his clothes in the neatest fashion and was con- 
stantly washing his face between his two fore legs, 
brushing his hair and attending to his ears after 


MR. RACCOON’S OYSTER SUPPER 33 

the accepted fashion of the cat. And the cat, as 
all the world knows, is the cleanest of beasts. 

^‘Your Fox is a shaggy creature,” he would say. 
“Almost as unkempt as the farm Dog, whom I de- 
spise.” 

So it is not to be wondered that Mrs. Coon, if 
she were going to have an oyster supper, would 
have an elegant one. 

Elegance in the matter of suppers is simply a 
question of due preparation, and of this Mrs. Coon 
was thoroughly aware. Nothing would please her 
husband more, she knew, than to have the party 
go off without a hitch. 

“We’ll spend to-night getting ready,” she 
planned. “I can’t bear to see people digging in 
the mud and eating at the same time. It is not 
nice. Perhaps it is well enough on a merely fam- 
ily picnic to let everybody shift for himself, and I 
know the children rather enjoy getting dirty. I 
did when I was a little girl. But my ideal of the 
thing, done as it should be, is to have a great lot 
of oysters already dug, and arranged in an appetiz- 
ing pile. It saves time, too, and makes the guests 
feel better. I never liked these parties where you 
go digging for your own victuals.” 


34 


FOREST FRIENDS 


How could an elegant gentleman have a wife 
more in accord with his desires than that? Im- 
mediately Mr. Coon embraced Mrs. Coon in a 
loving clasp, for he felt that she was responding 
to his best and most refined impulses. 

For two nights, then, while the October moon 
rode serenely overhead. Ringtail Coon and Mother 
Coon, with little Grayfur and Brownie, and the 
two boys, Broadhead and Fuzzy Muzzle, went 
from their home in the sweet-gum tree, through the 
wood to the farm road, under the fence to the 
orchard, back of the orchard to the corn-field, and 
then downhill to the steep clay banks of the river. 
At that point they let themselves tumble over the 
edge, for there were only bushes to fall into, and 
Mr. Coon did not approve of sliding down mud- 
banks. 

‘‘It’s hard on the seat of your trousers,” he said; 
“and Mother has all the washing she can do.” 

And then they lost no time digging, but scam- 
pered here and there, nosing, out the great black 
shells, which they scratched and worried out of 
the wet soil, sometimes venturing into the water to 
get a particularly fat and enticing one. 

“We’ll store them here in a hole under this cor- 
nel bush,” Ringtail decided; “and if we cover them 


MR. RACCOON’S OYSTER SUPPER 35 

well, putting back all this driftwood and rubbish 
on top, no one will guess what’s been done.” 

And no one, indeed, but sly old Mr. Fox would 
ever have known what had happened. The tempt- 
ing collection of oysters, pecks of them, was not, 
however, to remain unmolested. But as the Coons 
increased their provisions, and worked mightily 
until the moon went down, they foresaw no acci- 
dent, and only entertained themselves with happy 
visions of the remarks and exclamations which 
their cousins would be sure to make when they 
beheld such stunning abundance. 

“Dear me. Ringtail, there’s only one thing that 
troubles me. I feel that we ought to invite the 
’Possums. You know how generous they were in 
that matter of the persimmons. No one would 
ever have guessed that there was such a tree in the 
whole State; and it was, after all, an invitation that 
they gave us, even if you did threaten Mr. ’Possum 
in a business way.” 

“I guess I did,” laughed Ringtail as he put an- 
other handful of oysters into the hole and stamped 
them down; “I told Wooly ’Possum not to be hid- 
ing his assets that way or I’d bite his tail off. But 
go ahead and invite them, if you want to. It’ll 
show that we’re not snobbish anyway. And the 


FOREST FRIENDS 


36 

’Possums are as likely to appreciate all this as any- 
body. You’ll have to open their oysters for them, 
you know.” 

“Surely, my dear. I will do so gladly. A 
hostess never gets any of her own party anyway. 
I don’t expect to do anything but watch other peo- 
ple eat. That’s the way of receptions and such.” 

For Mrs. Coon had arrived at that stage of ex- 
citement in which a hostess feels herself elevated 
and ennobled above humanity in general by virtue 
of the toiling she has gone through in order to 
make the rest of the world happy. 

By this time they had to stop and take a bite 
themselves, for day was beginning to break, and the 
children, at least, must have something to eat. 
Then, having arranged the top of their secret store 
with the greatest care, and very loath to leave it, 
they scrambled up the bank and set out for home. 
Tired they were and a little cross, so that the 
youngsters quarreled a good deal, and Mr. Coon, 
slightly worried, was not so pleasant as when he 
set out. 

“Oh, nothing,” he replied to his wife’s inquiry 
as to why he was so glum. “Only I’m a bit anx- 
ious about those oysters. It’s just possible that 
somebody may find them.” 


MR. RACCOON’S OYSTER SUPPER 37 

‘^Oh, pshaw!’’ was all she would say. “No- 
body’s going near that spot. And if anybody did 
and went and sat right down on top of them, he’d 
never guess what was under all those sticks.” 

But somebody did exactly this. For the Coons 
were all fast asleep in the sweet-gum tree, not 
even dreaming of their party, when Mr. Fox edged 
along the river shore, greatly elated at discover- 
ing so many little foot-prints in the mud. It was 
plain who had been there. And as the dainty 
tracks centered under the cornel bush, it took no 
wits at all, and only a little brisk pawing, to dis- 
cover the secret. 

Mr. Fox laughed as though he would give up. 
For that is a trait of all foxy natures to go into 
fits of laughter when the possibility of turning a 
mean trick presents itself. 

“Well, of all things!” he finally gasped, as he 
held his sides. “How mighty kind of them!” 
Then, licking his chops, and fairly choking with 
humor, he set off just as fast as he could go. Up 
the shore and through the woods he ran; and at 
a certain tree where a great sentinel crow sat eying 
the farmers in a distant field, he barked out one 
short, sharp message. 

He had to say nothing more. Before he could 


FOREST FRIENDS 


38 

get back to the spot where the delicious supper was 
stored, the crows were coming, one and two at a 
time, then three and four, and finally a small flock 
of them. 

Mr. Fox got very little for his pains, for the 
crows were as quick as lightning in their motions. 
Up in the air they flew with an oyster in their 
beaks, and over the rocks and bowlders which 
jutted from the shore they would pause but a sec- 
ond to drop their burden. Down it would come, 
breaking to pieces as it fell on the rock, and then 
the crow would come down almost as fast as the 
oyster, to tear out the meat and swallow it. Mr. 
Fox played around the edges, as it were; for too 
many crows had come, and they fought him off 
when he tried to snap up his share. 

^‘Oh, well, I don’t care much for oysters any- 
way,” he muttered, trying to console himself. But 
he was in reality bitterly tantalized, and he was 
truly in tears of disgust when the great black crowd 
of noisy birds flew at him in a body and drove 
him off. They benefited by his confidence, but 
they were utterly selfish, and he suddenly felt 
wickedly put upon. 

What he had done to the Coons never occurred 
to him. 


MR. RACCOON’S OYSTER SUPPER 39 

Mr. Coon never recovered from the mortifica- 
tion of that evening. The guests had assembled 
in a body; all of his brother’s family and their de- 
pendents, and the little ’Possums, who were so set 
up at the invitation that they fairly beamed. Such 
toilets had been performed and such preparation 
of pleasant remarks had gone on, that everybody 
was in the finest of party feeling. 

The walk through the corn-field, the ease and 
happy expectancy! Getting down the mud-bank 
was not altogether a formal ceremony, for some 
slid, and some just plunged headlong; but at the 
bottom everybody brushed his clothes, and the lit- 
tle Coons and the little ’Possums danced in glee. 

Then, lo and behold, there was no supper at all! 
The work that the crows had done was apparent 
enough. But how they ever knew where to find 
the banquet was an unsolved mystery to Mr. Coon. 

Never again did Ringtail or his wife try to be 
fashionable. ‘‘Dig and swallow,” became the rule 
at all the oyster suppers; and even at this one, 
after the disaster had bestowed its first stunning 
blow, the guests and the company as a whole fell' 
to digging as hard as they could, and ate with 
might and main. 

Mrs. Coon, having urged the ’Possums to come, 


40 


FOREST FRIENDS 


had to open oysters until her thumbs were sore; 
but she did it with a good grace, and after every- 
body got to going, there was all the laughter and 
happiness the heart could wish. 

‘^Yes, it was a merry party, after all,” Mr. Coon 
admitted several hours later. He was curling up 
in his sweet-gum tree bedroom, ready for another 
day’s sleep. ‘^But it was a free for all, a regular 
guzzling. What’s the use of trying to be nice 
when all the world’s made up of crows?” 

But in this query, Mr. Ringtail Coon was only 
a bit petulant. The best of it is that he does not 
know the ignorance of the world. For scarcely 
anybody appreciates or even guesses the true ele- 
gance and the dainty ways of Mr. and Mrs. Rac- 


coon. 


VI 

MRS. GOOSE AND HER SWAMP COUSINS 

I T was a beautiful morning, very early, with the 
dew on the grass and the mists lifting from the 
sea, when Mrs. Goose with her seven little 
goslings walked through the farm gate, down the 
path to the road, and then waddled under the fence 
into the pasture. 

^^You are well along now, my children,” she was 
saying, “and your travels should begin.” 

“And what are our travels?” the little geese 
piped as they stepped along beside their stately 
parent. 

“Your travels, my dears, are those excursions 
away from the cramping and monotonous sur- 
roundings of the farmyard. That’s what your 
travels are. None of your family are given to 
staying always and forever at home.” 

“Oh, no,” the goslings all quacked in chorus. 
“We don’t want to stay around that farmyard all 
our days. That’s what the chickens do, and the 
41 


42 FOREST FRIENDS 

guinea-hens. But where are we going now, 
Mother?^’ 

For the beautiful Mrs. Goose was heading 
straight for the swamp at the foot of the great pas- 
ture, and already she was taking them through the 
tufted grass and the low bushes, through which 
they could not easily descry her stately form. 
They were quite out of breath, and bore along be- 
hind her, being very careful to keep exactly in her 
foot-prints. 

‘We are going to the great salt river, and the 
marshes,’’ she called back to them. “That is 
where your cousins live and we shall spend a lovely 
day with them. But we must hurry through these 
bushes. I never feel safe until I am well out of 
them.” 

She explained no more than this, for she was a 
bird well versed in the bringing up of children, 
and she did not wish to frighten them. But, truth 
to tell, this bushy part of the path to her favorite 
haunts was always full of its terrors for her. 

“It looks so very much like the spot where my 
first husband was attacked by a fox,” she confided 
to one of her friends. “He was never seen again, 
of course, and although I was not long a widow, 
still I have never been consoled for his taking off.” 


MRS. GOOSE 


43 


Naturally, then, she had for the rest of her days 
a distrust of bushy paths, and it was with a great 
quack of relief that she emerged with all her lit- 
tle ones on the banks of the deep, narrow stream 
which was a part of the great marsh. 

Off she swam on the water, paddling with a ma- 
jestic ease, and down they hopped and splashed 
and paddled beside her, the seven of them, highly 
excited over the prospect of a day’s adventure. 

The stream was narrow and deep, much unlike 
the shallow duck-pond in the farmyard, and it 
gave the goslings an exhilarating sensation to be 
thus abroad on a real stream. 

^^How good it is,” Mrs. Goose quacked, “to feel 
the clear, cool water, and to know that you are not 
paddling across a mere mud-puddle! 

“And there are no tin cans and other rubbish 
here,” she went on. “Very different, all this, from 
the rather common surroundings of the duck-pond. 
You must realize that your family is a superior one, 
and that while the ducks on the farm do very well 
for neighbors, they are not the aristocrats that we 
are. And I am taking you purposely, my chil- 
dren, to visit my most exclusive friends.” 

The old goose was indeed a haughty personage, 
as any one could tell by the way she held her head. 


44 


FOREST FRIENDS 


For she swam as a soldier marches, with eyes to 
the front and a splendid air. 

Soon they came to where the narrow inlet of the 
marsh widened into a broad expanse of water 
banked by low, wide areas of reeds and rushes. 
Many channels and enticing little bays made off 
into the depths of shady and inviting spots where 
there were cedars and alders and dense, tangled 
vines. There were delicious odors in the air, and 
this made the goslings suddenly very hungry. 
They begged their mother to let them run through 
the grasses to pluck the tender and inviting things 
which their eyes caught sight of. But she shook 
her downy head and kept them paddling along 
beside her, cautioning them very wisely: 

^‘Never go browsing by yourself until you know 
the ways of the country. Where there are others 
feeding it is safe for goslings. But to go into those 
tall grasses, tempting as they are, is to walk right 
into danger. You have never met Mr. Black- 
snake, and I hope you never will until you are too 
big to tempt him!’’ 

Immediately, of course, they clamored for the 
details about this dreadful creature, but their 
mother spared them any unhappy visions of the 
sort. 


MRS. GOOSE 45 

^‘You must not dwell on such uncomfortable 
things,” she would say. “All you need think of 
when you are out with me are the bright sky and 
the good green world. But here we are, almost 
at Mrs. Bittern’s gate. And there is Grandpa Bit- 
tern waiting for us at the door.” 

As she spoke, the goslings all craned their necks; 
but they were not big enough to see over the top of 
things as their mother could, and they were totally 
in doubt as to who the Bitterns were, or where 
they lived. 

Suddenly there was a great quacking and flap- 
ping of wings on the part of their mother, and they 
found themselves touching bottom in a beautiful 
shallow where the black earth and the mosses grew 
over the very water. Here all was shaded and 
hidden by the overhanging bushes, and great tree- 
trunks rose close at hand, with clinging vines and 
innumerable strands of leaf and tendril swaying 
in the clear air. 

Never had they dreamed of such a beautiful 
spot. But they were not to realize how lovely it 
was all at once, for they were to get acquainted 
with it only after the greetings of the visit were 
over. 

Their cousin, Mrs. Bittern, who was so slim and 


FOREST FRIENDS 


46 

brown, with black trimmings to her wings, and a 
bit of gray lace at her bosom, and the stately gen- 
tleman who stood guard by her nest, were quite 
enough to overpower the little goslings. They 
couldn’t remember their own names and they stam- 
mered with embarrassment; and in the nest was a 
solitary youngster, with a very long bill, and big, 
frightened eyes, whom they were cautious in ap- 
proaching. His only greeting was a vicious pok- 
ing at them with his little head, and they noted 
that his neck was very strong. 

‘^Billy isn’t used to children yet,” Mrs. Bittern 
hastened to apologize. ‘^But he’ll soon get used 
to them. Just hand him a bit of fish. Father, and 
a few of those small crabs. Oh, a very small one. 
Father. You nearly choked him to death with 
that big one you gave him at breakfast.” 

True enough, little Billy Bittern was in a better 
humor when something more had gone down his 
throat; and while the two mothers fell into an 
immediate discussion of the stupidity of fathers 
and uncles, the baby Bittern and the little goslings 
were quacking and playing around the nest in the 
noisiest fashion. 

^‘So this, my dears, is a true country home,” their 
mother said as she turned to them. ^This is the 


MRS. GOOSE 


47 


kind of thing that your father and I have always 
wanted ; a little place of our own in the swamp !” 

“Oh, Mother dear, wouldn’t it be lovely!” they 
all burst out, really transported with joy at the 
thought of living forever where it was all like this, 
so free and open and sweet. 

“Hal ha!” laughed the tall owner of the charm- 
ing retreat. “That is what you farm people al- 
ways say when you get here. But you know very 
well you’ll be glad to get back to what you call the 
conveniences and elegance of life.” 

By this he meant the cracked corn, and the snug 
quarters, and the rest of the good things in the 
farmer’s yard. 

But Mrs. Goose pretended not to understand him 
at all, and was helping Mrs. Bittern to put the nest 
to rights as they all prepared to go out for a walk. 
For that is always the first thing to do when you 
visit your country cousins. 

Such precautions as the Bitterns took when they 
left the house! It was cover the nest here and put 
a stick there, and finally, to effect a complete dis- 
guise, they raked a lot of straw over the top. 
Why, you never would have guessed it was a house 
at all! 

Then through the grasses and the deep, black 


FOREST FRIENDS 


48 

mud, and over innumerable tufts of green, where 
there were great wild cabbages and tempting 
bunches of mallow and flag, they went in happy 
procession. The goslings nibbled and tasted and 
feasted, wherever their mother was sure it was 
wise, and little Billy with his sharp beak poked 
incessantly in the mud for the things he liked best 
in the way of tadpoles and beetles. 

Almost all day they picnicked in this delightful 
place, and only stopped in their leisurely stroll 
when they came to a grassy knoll where the mother 
birds thought it well to let the children rest. 

All the gossip of the year was gone over by their 
elders. Mrs. Bittern told of her winter sojourn 
far to the South. 

‘We stayed much of the time with the Herons 
and the Spoonbills. Theirs is such an attractive 
rookery, you know, and I delight in Southern so- 
ciety. We came North with your first cousin, 
Mrs. Hudson Goose. A noble family, your great 
Northern relatives, my dear Fluffy. But they fly 
a little too fast for us Bitterns. We parted after 
a few days. Longbill, you know, likes to take it 
easy when he travels.” 

But the children observed that Mrs. Bittern was 
moved to tears when their mother alluded to her 


MRS. GOOSE 


49 


late half-brother and another relative, uniting 
these names with a reference to Christmas dinner. 
But they did not understand the connection, and 
it puzzled them when Cousin Bittern answered : 

‘‘Never mind, dear Fluffy Goose, there’s little 
danger for you. You know you’re getting tough. 
Let’s see, you’re twenty now, are you not?” 

I And they were still more surprised when their, 
mother bridled at this and said that surely Mrs. 
Bittern was mistaken. No, she was only eighteen, 
and if her neck was spared it was not at all be- 
cause she was tough. It was because she possessed 
the ability to lay the most and largest eggs, and to 
rear the finest families. 

Mrs. Bittern was only too eager to agree with her 
companion. Not for the world would she have 
her words taken amiss; so the little family quarrel 
was passed over, and Mr. Bittern merely observed 
that the ladies were getting a little tired, and he 
thought that they had all better go home. 

But if he had been very quiet, this dignified Mr. 
Bittern, he was, like a good many modest people, 
none the less able to distinguish himself, for after 
they reached the welcome door-yard, and Mrs. 
Goose and her family were about to depart for 
home, he supplied the treat of the whole day. 


50 


FOREST FRIENDS 


^^Surely, Cousin Longbill,” Mrs. Goose had re- 
marked, “you are going to boom for us before we 
go. I wouldn’t have the babies miss it for any- 
thing.” 

Whereat, to their dismay, Mr. Bittern began 
making the most frightful sound they had ever 
heard. It was his great feat, that for which his 
family was renowned, and it was not like anything 
ever known on sea or land. To do it he filled 
himself so full of air that he was like to burst. 
And he was very red in the face when he got 
through, like a good many famous singers. 

“Isn’t it wonderful!” said his wife. “I never 
knew one to sing the national anthem better.” 

For, to her simple soul, her husband’s song was 
of course the one and only song. It must conse- 
quently be very important. 

Scarcely could Mrs. Goose praise her cousin 
enough, and the goslings all begged him to do it 
again. But once was enough, he reminded them, 
and they discreetly forbore from disagreeing with 
him. 

By this time they must hurry to get home, and 
their farewells were hasty. Like many return 
journeys, the way back was the shortest; and be- 
fore they knew it, the goslings were trailing 


MRS. GOOSE 


51 

through the bushes at the foot of their own pas- 
ture. And somehow the little hill and the pair of 
bars and the bit of road, even the farmyard strewn 
with straw and pleasingly disordered, suddenly 
looked better to them than the lonely home of the 
Bitterns far out in the great swamp. 

‘‘Ah, my dears,” their mother said, as they wad- 
dled up to their home under the burdocks and the 
currant bushes, “that’s what a day away from home 
does for you. It makes you glad for what you 
have.” 

And indeed they were happy to nestle under her 
ample wings, as the stars came out and the house 
dog bayed at the moon. And they were very 
happy to have heard their Cousin Bittern do his 
booming, and hoped, as many people hope after 
a great performance, that they would never have 
to hear it again I 


VII 

MRS. FOX STEALS ONE EGG TOO MANY 

O NCE upon a time, long, long ago, Mrs. 
Rabbit lived down by the sea on a great 
sand-hill. She was a very kind neighbor 
and disturbed no one She was poor, but she 
owned a great gray goose who laid wonderful big 
eggs. 

The goose had come to her in the strangest way, 
years and years ago. For it happened one day 
that just as Mrs. Rabbit was locking up her house 
to go and visit her cousins, she heard a sad voice 
in the bushes cry, ‘^Oh, Mrs. Rabbit, Mrs. Rabbit, 
please do help me in. I have broken my wing and 
fallen here, and all the other geese that were flying 
with me are gone. They left me where I fell.” 

At that Mrs. Rabbit gave up her intended visit, 
and took poor Downy Goose into the house, sent 
for Dr. Tossum, and did her best to comfort her. 

When Dr. Tossum came, he took one look at 
the afflicted goose, shook his head, and declared 
he could do nothing for her. Mrs. Rabbit there- 
52 


MRS. FOX STEALS TOO MANY 53 

upon told the unfortunate wayfarer that she must 
live there always. 

‘^You must make your home with me,” she said, 
“and we will make the best of things. Even with 
your poor broken wing you can manage to get 
along, for there is a fine swamp below the ridge of 
this hill and near it is the best of green grass and 
shady bushes.” 

Poor Downy Goose was overcome with happi- 
ness. She could only dry her streaming eyes with 
a plantain leaf, while she kept saying: 

“You are so kind, so very kind, dear Mrs. Rab- 
bit I I shall do my best to lay an egg every day 
for you — omitting Sundays, of course, and the 
Fourth of July.” 

At this Mrs. Rabbit threw her arms around poor 
Downy’s neck and they wept with joy. And from 
that day to this they have been the closest friends. 

Nor did the good gray goose fail in her promise. 
Indeed, she did her best; and always by noon, 
while Mrs. Rabbit would be dusting and sweep- 
ing, or getting the boiled grass ready for dinner, 
the lady goose would sit in the door yard mending 
socks or reading poetry, when suddenly she would 
lay an egg, and then, calling to her dear friend 
to bring the basket, they would put the egg away 


FOREST FRIENDS 


54 

on the pantry shelf. Then they would betake 
themselves for the rest of the day to the field and 
the edge of the swamp where Mrs. Rabbit would 
nibble the tender grass, and Downy Goose would 
wade in the soft, cool mud. 

Now, it was soon known among all the neigh- 
bors that Mrs. Rabbit and the strange goose were 
living together. Also it was soon told abroad that 
the goose was paying her board in eggs — big eggs 
— that she paid it every day, and that Mr. and 
Mrs. Rabbit were faring on the finest food. They 
had scrambled eggs, and omelettes and pound cake 
at every meal — and all this for merely taking in the 
poor, afflicted goose I 

You would think that all who heard it would 
have been glad to know how happy the rabbits 
were, and they ought to have pitied the poor goose, 
who could never fly again ; but that is not the way 
of the world. Instead of saying nice things, they 
said ugly ones, and behind Mrs. Rabbit’s back, the 
neighbors, Mrs. Fox in particular, expressed the 
bitterest jealousy. 

Mrs. Fox, indeed, grew so envious of these big 
goose eggs that at last she could stand it no longer, 
and resolved upon a plan for stealing them. She 
put all her wits to work, for, to get such big eggs 


MRS. FOX STEALS TOO MANY 55 

and carry them without breaking them open was 
a thing which only the cleverest thief in the world 
could do. Nevertheless, every day for five days, 
an egg disappeared from Mrs. Rabbit’s pantry. 

Mrs. Rabbit was greatly disturbed, but she never 
dreamed who was stealing the eggs. Finally she 
decided to watch the nest all the time; and to her 
surprise found that the thieves were her neighbors 
— Mr. and Mrs. Fox. 

How cleverly they managed! Mr. Fox lay on 
his back and held the big egg while Mrs. Fox 
pulled him over the hill by means of a rope tied 
to his tail. In this way they got the egg home. 

But Mrs. Rabbit laughed as she thought of how 
poor Mr. Fox’s back would be skinned, and how 
she would get revenge. 

Nor was it long before a way was opened for 
her to recover the lost eggs, and to put Mrs. Fox 
to confusion. For who should come walking in 
one morning but Mr. Bear, to say that invitations 
were out for a wonderful feast of goose eggs at 
Mrs. Fox’s home on the following Saturday night. 
And he asked Mrs. Rabbit if she were going. 

That was enough! Mrs. Rabbit determined to 
get back the eggs. But she would have to be very 
clever to fool Mrs. Fox. 


56 FOREST FRIENDS 

Mrs. Rabbit, knew that Mrs. Fox would come 
for the last goose egg soon. So she bored a hole 
in this egg at each end, and blew in at one end till 
the contents all flew out at the other and the shell 
was empty. Then she slipped inside, and Mr. 
Rabbit pasted small pieces of white paper over the 
openings. 

And here Mrs. Rabbit waited for the thieves to 
come, while Mr. Rabbit hid behind a tree near by. 

Soon they came, and after much effort the big 
egg was carried into Mrs. Fox’s home. Mrs. Rab- 
bit chuckled to herself as she saw the other five 
big eggs through a tiny peephole in the paper. 

While the gay old foxes were in the next room, 
entertaining their guests, Mrs. Rabbit broke the 
paper at one end and slipped out. Then she 
called softly to her husband to bring the wheel- 
barrow; and they piled in all the eggs and carried 
them away. 

Nor were they more pleased to recover their 
lost property than was the obliging goose when she 
learned of all that had been going on. 

“To think,” she exclaimed, “that I have been 
laying eggs for those dreadful foxes!” 

And Mr. and Mrs. Fox wonder to this day who 
stole the goose eggs. 



‘‘While the Gay Old Foxes Were in the Next Room, Mrs, 
Raubit Slipped Out” 


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VIII 

WHY MRS. FROG MUST LIVE IN THE SWAMPS 


ONG, long ago Mrs. Frog lived on the hill- 



sides. She was a goddess worshiped by all 


X— ^ the fairies because she ruled the sunshine 
and the rain, and she was a friend to them all, be- 
ing generous and dutiful. 

With her seventy daughters, she spent the days 
in spinning the most beautiful cloth of gold for 
the fairies to wear, and the flax which she spun 
was as yellow as the biggest and ripest pumpkin 
you ever saw. 

All the years that she served the fairies by her 
industry, and was dutiful in calling down the rains 
to refresh the earth, she was in great favor with 
the world, and no one was so much beloved by all 
the animals as Mrs. Frog. 

But the seventy daughters who were so hand- 
some, and who spun such miles of yellow thread, 
grew restless, and kept begging their mother for 
a holiday. She, too, owned to being a little weary, 


57 


FOREST FRIENDS 


58 

and would often remark with a yawn that it wasn’t 
the spinning, nor yet the weaving, which tired her, 
but the lack of diversion. 

‘^And think, dear Mother,” they would say, 
^^think of our lazy brothers, who do nothing but 
admire their shapely legs all day, and spend the 
whole night dancing and singing and eating sup- 
pers. It isn’t fair!” 

On speaking thus the daughters were very art- 
ful. For if there was one thing which angered 
Mrs. Frog, it was the laziness of her sons. Years 
and years ago she had given up trying to get them 
to do a single useful thing. And it was no conso- 
lation to observe that they got along in the world 
somehow, whether they did anything or not. 

“Look at their awful stomachs,” she would ex- 
claim. “The lazy creatures, always eating and 
singing. What a life!” 

It was thus that the seventy daughters played 
upon her feelings of disgust, urging her to adopt 
a change and give up spinning. Each one spoke 
to her alone, seven times a week, when she would 
reply : 

“Yes, my daughter, I am listening, and I don’t 
know but what you are quite right.” 

And then, when all the whole seventy spoke to- 


MRS. FROG 


59 


gether, as they made a point of doing when they 
knew she was tired out and had the headache, she 
could only clasp her hands to her ears and flee to 
her bedroom. 

At last the daughters won and Mrs. Frog began 
her holiday. She meant to take but a single even- 
ing and a day, hoping to get back to work there- 
after, rested and refreshed. But alas! once she 
began her career of dancing, and feasting, and stay- 
ing up till morning to sing and laugh and watch 
the sun come up, the day never came that she was 
willing to spin the yellow flax. 

Forty of the lovely daughters danced themselves 
to death within a week, but Mrs. Frog was so busy 
waltzing and marching and singing that in each 
instance, as the sad news came to her that another 
daughter was dead, she was too gay to care or even 
to ask, “Which one?” 

Terrible disaster began to come upon the land. 
All the birds and plants were dying for water. 
Clouds passed by, but Mrs. Frog was too lazy to 
make the rain fall. If she wasn’t dancing, she was 
sleeping, and so no time remained for her duties. 

One day the animals from the forest came to call 
on Mrs. Frog, to plead for rain. The mother rab- 
bits came from long distances to tell Mrs. Frog 


6o 


FOREST FRIENDS 


how their babies were perishing for water and for 
tender bits of green grass. 

But Mrs. Frog had become hardened and told 
them to leave her alone. 

‘Tlease give us rain! Please give us rain!” the 
birds all pleaded; but Mrs. Frog only frowned 
at having been awakened. 

Then came all the bees and the butterflies from 
the hillsides, tired, hot, and dusty. 

‘We are your neighbors and friends,” they cried. 
“Do give us rain 1 The flowers are all dead and we 
have no honey to eat!” 

“Go away!” croaked Mrs. Frog. “I must sleep 
during the day, and I have no time to worry with 
you! If you don’t like the way I manage this hill- 
side, go to the swamp lands !” 

Next came the fairies for their yellow dresses, 
which Mrs. Frog was to have spun from the yellow 
flax. Mrs. Frog was fast asleep, but when they 
called and called her she awoke. She rubbed her 
sleepy eyes and awakened all the family to help her 
spin the flax; but the sun shone down on the hot, 
dry earth so burningly that all her spinning-wheels 
caught on fire and everything in her house was 
burned up. 

“Oh, for a drop of water!” the birds and the ani- 


MRS. FROG 


6i 


mals were calling. ^^Help us, Mrs. Frog! Do 
help us!” 

But it was too late. Even Mrs. Frog’s wand, 
with which she called forth the rain from the 
clouds, was burned up. And Mrs. Frog was so 
terribly hot and thirsty that she didn’t know what 
to do. 

As a last resort she started for the swamp lands, 
thirty of her exhausted daughters trailing after her. 
They were all so tired they could no longer walk, 
and finally, being faint and bent over to the ground, 
they took to hopping. 

Down, down, down, through the hills they 
hopped until at last they reached the dark, damp 
swamp. The daughters had become as lazy as the 
sons; and Mrs. Frog herself desired nothing in the 
world but a cool, muddy bed at night, and a good 
log or a lily pad to sit on throughout the livelong 
day. 

But in her muddy bed she doesn’t sleep ; for all 
night long one may hear her calling : “More rain 1 
More rain! More rain!” 

While Mr. Frog croaks: “Knee deep! Knee 
deep! PCnee deep!” 

And all the little frogs: “Wade in! Wade in! 
Wade in!” 


IX 


THE SCARE-MAN TREE 

T here was a time when the world was 
mostly forest. There were plains, to be 
sure, and rich valleys, but the trees were 
everywhere, so that even the towns and farms were 
hidden by them ; and there were no great cities at 
all. 

It was then that the animals lived in peace, and 
they were not driven to hide themselves, nor to be 
always moving farther and farther away to find 
new shelters. 

But the days came when the forests were cut 
away. A little at a time, and always along the 
edges of the woods, men began to hack and to chop 
and to saw, until one by one the great trees came 
down. With them as they crashed to the earth 
came the birds’ nests; and where the trees had 
stood, the mosses and the grass dried up and died, 
for the hot sun poured in where once it had been 
shady and cool. 


62 


THE SCARE-MAN TREE 


63 

In the days when this began it distressed the ani- 
mals; so that the poor creatures at last resorted to a 
wonderful plan. To them the woods were very 
dear, and never were they frightened at what they 
saw or heard; although the depths of the forest 
were so full of terrors to foolish men. 

News was spread through the glens ana across 
the mountains that something was going to be done 
to save the woods. The birds and the swift, scam- 
pering little weasels, and the soft-footed wildcat, 
who can cover many miles and never be seen or 
heard, took the messages far and away. Time was 
allowed; for the beaver and the mud-turtle were 
necessary to the plan, and even at her best Mrs. 
Beaver is slow in her motions. It was none other 
than crafty old Major Wolf who had conceived the 
plan by which they would teach the wood-cutters 
a lesson. 

“Such simple and foolish creatures they are!” 
he remarked. “We’ve only to frighten them out 
of their wits, by some device or other, and if we 
scare them enough they’ll keep away from these 
woods forever!” 

With that he snapped his terrible jaws and 
turned his great yellow eyes on the company. Be- 
fore him and around him were all the animals of 


FOREST FRIENDS 


64 

the forest. The deer, who could think of nothing 
to do but to run, the fox, who knew every possible 
way of deceiving his enemies, the bear and the 
panther and many of the small creatures, down to 
the sleek little mole, were all talking at once. 

The bear and the wildcat were very impatient. 
They were all for fighting outright. 

‘‘You hug and I’ll scratch,” said the lynx to the 
bear. 

“We can do up an army of choppers if we get 
the chance,” added the panther; but he was lost in 
the debate, for the wisest of all, the great gray wolf, 
reminded them that if the men with their axes so 
much as caught sight of the animals, they would go 
away only to come back with their guns and to fill 
the forest with every conceivable trap. 

Then he pointed to a great, dead tree which 
stood alone and on the brow of the hill. The ani- 
mals looked and tried to get his meaning. Some 
of them yawned, such as the hedgehog, whose wits 
are slow; but the quick Mrs. Fox jumped and 
cried, “That’s it, that’s it! We’ll make that tree 
into a giant to guard the path to our woods.” 

Then Major Wolf exclaimed that the sagacious 
fox had guessed his plan. 

The wind and the frost had bent and broken the 


THE SCARE-MAN TREE 


65 

tree until it was like nothing in the world so much 
as a giant. Its arms were there and its shoulders; 
and its terrible body, as high as the church steeple, 
was bent forward as if to fall on any one so rash as 
to come near it. But it needed a great deal of what 
the heron called “touching up’^; for the heron is an 
artist, and goes every year, they say, to study the 
sculptures of Egypt. 

“It needs a mouth and two eyes, as any one can 
see for himself,” the lynx remarked; and the mole 
and the hedgehog suggested that the feet might be 
improved. Here was the task for the beavers; 
for carving and cabinet work is their specialty. 
And to chisel great holes for the eyes and the mouth 
was exactly what the woodpeckers and the squirrels 
could do. 

The work was so briskly done, that it was indeed 
completed before the admiring circle could gasp 
out its astonishment. While the chips and the saw- 
dust were flying. Major Wolf was moved to ob- 
serve in the most pious tones : 

“How marvelous that these poor little cousins of 
ours, these smaller, gnawing creatures (if I may 
call them such without hurting their feelings) 
should alone be able to serve the purposes of us 
more noble beasts.” 


66 


FOREST FRIENDS 


And he waved his paw to include the bear and 
the panther in the nobility. 

But the gentle Mrs. Deer knew what a terrible 
hypocrite Major Wolf was. And she moved with 
her children to the other side of the meeting; for 
she had watched his mouth water even as he spoke 
such wonderful sentiments. 

The squirrel was boring away at the great giant’s 
limbs, carving and cutting; and even the slow old 
turtle, with his powerful nippers, was pruning the 
tangle of vines from the feet. 

But the morning was close at hand. The wood 
creatures had barely enough time to complete their 
work and scamper off. They crouched in the 
bushes to await the effect of their scheme. And 
even though they knew the giant was no giant at 
all, but just a great, dead tree, they were awestruck 
at the result of their work. 

As if to add to the strength of their purpose, the 
sun was rising in a terrible glory of red, with the 
blackest of clouds all round. 

It was terrible. The red light of the morning, 
through the gaping mouth and awful eyes, the wav- 
ing arms and the immensity of the giant were 
frightful. 

The wood-cutters came. But only one of them 


THE SCARE-MAN TREE 67 

got as far as the tree. With a howl of fear, he 
turned and fled, dropping his ax as he ran. He 
told of the awful giant with eyes and mouth of fire, 
and the others refused to come near. 

The animals were greatly elated ; but the wisest 
of them knew that some day the foolish wood-cut- 
ters would find out the truth. And such was the 
case; although it was a long, long time, and the 
great giant which the animals made warded off 
their enemies for many a year. 


X 

MRS. FOX AND THE EIDER-DUCK EGGS 


O NCE upon a time the animals who live 
away up North, in the cold Arctic regions, 
came together for a feast in celebration 
of their blessings. The bears, the wolves, the 
minks, the sables, even the big, spluttery seals that 
swim in the icy water, were all on hand to make a 
great noise, singing and shouting and devouring 
the things that they all loved to eat. 

All were there except Mrs. Fox, and why she 
was not invited no one knew. Maybe Mr. Pen- 
guin, who wrote the invitations, was responsible for 
the omission, but at any rate it is a fact that the fox 
family was left out in the cold. 

Of course, Mrs. Fox felt herself sorely slighted. 
She and her six children came near enough, how- 
ever, to learn that after the celebration and the 
dance, which was to be held on the ice floor of the 
Bear palace, there was to be a great supper in Mrs. 
Bear’s kitchen. It was to be a feast of the eggs 
of the eider-duck. A supper, needless to say, that 
68 


MRS. FOX AND EIDER-DUCK EGGS 69 

any bear or fox would travel night and day to 
enjoy. 

On the night of the feast Mrs. Fox crept quietly 
up to the bears’ house. 

Mrs. Bear and all the ladies were in the bed- 
room, brushing down their rich winter suits, and 
prinking away to look their best before going down 
to meet the other guests. [And, of all things, they 
were gossiping about Mrs. Fox! Just because she 
wasn’t there (as they thought), they were speaking 
of her in the most slighting terms. It seemed as 
if they were all talking at once; but Mrs. Fox, 
whose ear was close to the chimney, could hear 
Mrs. Wolf’s deep Voice distinctly. 

‘That old coat of Mrs. Fox’s is the shabbiest I 
have ever seen,” she was saying in her severest tone. 
“One would think that a woman of her build, 
slinky and queer as it is, would put on white every 
winter. I would wear white myself if I didn’t 
think this handsome gray of mine an elegant thing 
the year round.” 

They all agreed that Mrs. Wolf was indeed very 
elegant, and that Mrs. Fox was very shabby. Lit- 
tle Miss Ermine, who, as all the world knows, has 
the finest white coat in the world, piped up shrill 
and cross : 


70 


FOREST FRIENDS 


“Right you are, Mrs. Wolf. White’s the thing 
in winter, but only for those adapted to it. It 
scarcely becomes every one.” 

At this she made a great showing of her own 
dainty figure, cutting several merry dance figures 
before the mirror. 

Mrs. Fox had heard enough. She waited for 
the ladies to go downstairs to the great room where 
all the gentlemen sat about. She knew what they 
would do. There would be wonderful speeches 
by the biggest and oldest bears, about the midnight 
sun and other blessings; the walrus would make a 
long speech, too, mostly about seaweed and fish; 
and then, after a dance or two, they would all come 
trooping out to the kitchen. Old Uncle Penguin 
would make a very long prayer, and everybody 
would eat until he could eat no more. 

Mrs. Fox was very angry. She resolved that 
there should be no supper for her mean, back- 
biting friends. 

Cautiously she felt her way down the sides of the 
cliff which was the outside of Mrs. Bear’s great 
house. As she expected, the eider-duck eggs were 
in a basket suspended from the pantry window. 
Quick as a flash she ran back for her children, and 


MRS. FOX AND EIDER-DUCK EGGS 71 

in another minute they were all beside her on the 
roof of Mrs. Bear’s kitchen. 

^^Old Mrs. Sloth, who cooks for Mrs. Bear, is 
sound asleep by the fire. Don’t wake her up. 
And do just what I tell you to,” whispered Mother 
Fox. 

The little foxes held their breath. 

^^Stand in a line! Now each one of you take 
hold of the next one’s tail. Each of you except 
little Fuzzypaw. He’s the quickest and the light- 
est and he is going to run up and down the ladder 
which the rest of you will make, and bring me those 
eggs, one by one. Just grip each other’s tails as 
tight as you can, and don’t make a sound!” 

It was no sooner said than done. One after 
another the eggs were brought up to the edge of the 
roof by the little fox, who ran up and down the 
ladder as nimbly as a weasel. Mrs. Fox stowed 
the eggs away carefully in a brand-new basket she 
had brought with her, and in a few minutes the 
basket by Mrs. Bear’s pantry window was quite 
empty. 

Then off through the big woods the little foxes 
trotted gaily behind their mother. 

What happened when the supper party found 


72 


FOREST FRIENDS 


that it had no supper, Mrs. Fox never knew. For 
while Mrs. Bear and her guests were reduced to 
confusion and disappointment, the foxes were at 
home roasting eggs by the fire, and sitting up to all 
hours in the jolliest fashion. 

The next year Mrs. Fox was invited. Old Mr. 
Wolf, who knew a thing or two, thought it would 
be the wisest thing to ask her. So all the other 
animals agreed; and Mrs. Fox never found society 
in the Arctic Circle more cordial than after the 
season it ignored her and she stole the eggs of the 
eider-duck from Mrs. Bear. 



'‘Off Through the 1>ig Woods the Little Foxes Trotted Gaily 
Behind Their Mother” 


Page 71 






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XI 

SUNNY GOURD AND LADY TRUMPET-VINE 



ERY much out of the beaten track — in fact, 


only to be approached by an old road that 


▼ had long fallen into disuse — stood a 
neglected cabin, a poor weather-beaten thing with 
sunken roof and decaying timbers. 

Its dooryard had already begun to grow the 
young pine trees which come up in great plumes 
of long, green needles; and the little garden plot, 
which used to boast its vegetables, had become a 
mass of brambles and nettles. 

“How sad this all is,’’ the poor little cabin used 
to sigh. “Although I suppose it is better to be 
harboring rabbits and squirrels, and to have my 
beams plastered up with nests, than to have no liv- 
ing thing enjoy my shelter. Still, I wish spring 
when it comes would bring people to unlock my 
door and children to fill these poor little rooms 
with their laughter.” 

For the cabin could remember many children 


73 


74 


FOREST FRIENDS 


that had lived there, and sometimes it seemed to 
him that he heard them again, playing in the 
nearby woods, or running and calling down the 
road. 

Sometimes he did hear such voices, for people 
often passed the cabin on the way to a distant 
plantation, and children were as likely to be among 
them as not. 

But the squirrels and the rabbits had it pretty 
much their own way with the deserted cabin, run- 
ning in and out beneath the underpinning; and the 
only noise around the place was that of Mrs. Yel- 
lowhammer when she came pounding at the roof 
for what the decayed old shingles might conceal. 

declare, you poor old house!” the energetic 
bird would say. “It’s terrible how the worms are 
eating at your timbers and shingles.” Whereat she 
would fall to and nearly pound the life out of the 
poor old cabin, in her determination to get all 
there was. 

But Mrs. Yellowhammer and the rabbits that 
danced in the moonlight were not the only visitors, 
for often in the summer time came the humming- 
birds to visit the trumpet-vine which covered 
nearly all of one end of the structure. 

“I am the saving grace, the chief beauty of this 


GOURD AND TRUMPET-VINE 75 

establishment,” the Lady Trumpet would say. 
‘^And I know it.” 

“Of course you are,” Mrs. Yellowhammer would 
reply. “And it was a great mistake that you were 
ever planted here. A lady of your elegance, 
among such weeds and common things, and at the 
very edge of nowhere!” 

“Oh, I don’t mind it much, although we have 
little company now. But who’s this coming this 
very minute?” 

Sure enough, a man was passing. And he came 
through the old dooryard straight up to the cabin 
steps and stood there a minute, and then was gone. 
But not before he had thrown something over his 
shoulder which lighted with a dry rattle, like that 
of corn, in at the base of the old chimney. 

“What a queer thing to do!” thought Lady 
Trumpet- Vine, thereby speaking her own mind 
and that of the cabin as well. 

“Not at all,” suddenly spoke up Mr. Rabbit. 
“That man is throwing seed over his left shoulder 
for his luck. I’ve seen it done before. And I’m 
glad he doesn’t want my left hind foot, or what- 
ever it is that such people like to carry in their 
pockets for good luck.” 

Immediately Mrs. Yellowhammer, who had 


FOREST FRIENDS 


76 

been screaming to her friend, Red-necked Wood- 
pecker, to come and enjoy this mystery, flew down 
to inspect the seeds which lay on the soil at the 
foot of the chimney. And Mr. Rabbit scampered 
to get to the spot also. 

They looked long and hard at the little brown 
things; then Mr. Rabbit tried biting one of them. 

“Ugh!” he exclaimed. “Bitter as poison!” 

“I never taste things I am in doubt about,” Mrs. 
Yellowhammer declared; “but I’m not a seed-eater 
anyway. What does Mr. Bob- White think they 
are?” 

For a dapper little partridge was on the scene 
now, turning his head this way and that as he 
squinted at the mysterious seeds. 

“Gourds!” he finally pronounced them. 
“Gourd seed. No good for eating. Even a spar- 
row wouldn’t touch them.” 

Then the birds flew off and Mr. Rabbit skipped 
rope with himself all around the yard, for he 
wanted to restore his spirits; this curious incident 
having for a second clouded his buoyant nature. 

This happened in the very early spring, before 
even a leaf was showing on Lady Trumpet- Vine, 
and before even a purple wood violet had shown 
herself in the borders of the deserted garden. 


GOURD AND TRUMPET-VINE 


77 


Rains came; long ones that drenched the earth and 
gullied the roads. The eaves of the cabin dripped 
and dripped night and day, and it was not long 
before great puddles lay by the sunken door- 
step, and were soaking down into the roots of every- 
thing. 

^‘What a pity there’s nothing but weeds and those 
low-down gourd seeds to be benefited by all this !” 
sighed the Lady Trumpet. “I shall probably 
flower generously this year. But what’s the use?” 

Then she would grow very sad as the rain in- 
creased and out of the dark skies came the heavy 
south winds. 

But when the sky cleared, the gourd seeds had 
sunk out of sight. That was good luck for them. 
Deeper down they went and at last their first little 
roots were feeling the rich soil that no plant had 
enjoyed in many a year. Then two bright green 
leaves, laden with halves of the old seed coverings, 
came up. 

The glistening earth was trying to dry itself in 
the sunshine, and the jolly Woodpecker was look- 
ing out of his window in the trunk of the old 
cherry-tree. 

‘‘Well, I’m a crow!” he exclaimed, “or there are 
those gourd seeds up and out of bed so soon!” 


78 


FOREST FRIENDS 


He was so delighted with this that he told his 
wife; and soon all the other people around the poor 
neglected place were flying and running to take a 
look. 

The little fellows, very sturdy and determined, 
were holding their leaves out exactly as if they 
were spreading their palms upward to catch the 
sunlight in their hands. 

Time went on and the seeds became vines. The 
old chimney, built of sticks and mud, and very 
unsightly, was revived to new feelings. 

“Not since my supper fires went out have I felt 
so much alive,” it moaned as though it would like 
to be really pleased. 

“If only I could smoke again, I should feel com- 
pletely contented.” 

Soon the chimney and the eaves were green with 
gourd vine. Summer was underway, with its long 
hot mornings and its wonderful nights. Lady 
Trumpet-Vine was covered with buds, and she was 
already telling of how she would be visited by all 
the most beautiful creatures in the world. 

“But nobody’ll visit your flowers,” she said to the 
gourd vine. “Nobody wants to. You’re a bitter, 
ugly, common vine. That’s what you are.” 

“I have some very respectable relatives, just the 


GOURD AND TRUMPET-VINE 


79 


same,” sang out Sunny Gourd, determined not to 
be utterly demeaned. “There’s Mr. Watermelon 
and Mr. Cucumber. They are very well esteemed, 
you know. I think they are appreciated perhaps 
almost as much as you are.” 

“But not for their beauty, my dear,” was the re- 
tort. “I am loved by all the world for my mag- 
nificence. Birds and men know beauty when they 
see it. Trust me in that.” 

Then, almost in anger, such was her queenly 
pride. Lady Trumpet burst a few of her buds. 
The full open flowers were wonderful, and a per- 
fume exhaled from them which made her neighbor 
dizzy. 

“It’s no use,” Sunny Gourd sighed. “I can’t do 
that. My flowers are merely little no-account 
white things. No perfume to speak of. But I 
don’t care, I’ve reached the roof anyway, and I 
can look up at the sky and watch the birds in these 
trees, and have a good time to myself. And I can 
look at you, too, Mrs. Trumpet.” 

The stately vine waved her tendrils and fanned 
herself gently. She couldn’t help seeing that this 
gourd person was at least polite. 

But the hardest thing in the world to bear is the 
idea that you are of no use to anybody. And it was 


8o 


FOREST FRIENDS 


this which hurt the robust gourd vine. Not a bird 
came for honey, and yet they hovered in ecstasy 
over Lady Trumpet. Humming-birds, as brilliant 
as flashing gems, came whirring like rays from a 
diamond shot from the sky. They would plunge 
their long beaks deep into the flowers to get the nec- 
tar, and then dart away, only to return again for 
more. Other beautiful creatures came to the de- 
serted garden and sang madly with delight, simply 
trying to make their melody as intoxicating as Lady 
Trumpet’s perfume. 

But they studiously avoided Sunny Gourd. His 
leaves, big and green and very rough, and his 
sinewy stems, his modest flowers and the bitter 
juice of them, were odious to everybody. Yet he 
was green as emerald, and he had made a picture of 
his end of the cabin. 

“But the birds, how I love them!” he kept saying 
to himself. “And they will have none of me!” 

At last, however, to his great consolation, there 
came a little green bee to visit him. 

“Well, well!” it buzzed. “Here you are! Just 
what I want!” 

And the little visitor tried to hang in every 
flower. His visits lasted all day. 

“Yes, I’m only a low ground bee,” he remarked. 


GOURD AND TRUMPET-VINE 


8i 


after Sunny Gourd had confided in him. ^‘Those 
aristocratic honey-bees don’t recognize me at all. 
But I don’t care. And you mustn’t care. The 
birds will be mightily obliged to you yet.” 

And without a word more, he was off. Nor 
would this handsome little fellow ever explain 
what he meant. He would only say: “You just 
wait!” 

Nor were there many weeks of waiting. For 
the autumn came, and the pinch of cold nights with 
it. Things began to shrivel, but the wonderful 
fruit of the gourd vine turned from green to yel- 
low; lovely as gold. Sunny Gourd had produced 
a hundred dippers: some with handles curled and 
long, some straight as rulers, and some that were 
short and thick. They hung in yellow companies 
from the eaves trough, or they clustered over the 
roof. The best of them grew against the chimney, 
and yet all were as gourds should be, stout of shell 
and beautifully rounded. 

“Very strange!” Lady Trumpet remarked. 
“Almost impressive. But I’m glad I don’t have to 
do it. My seed pods are elegance itself, and yet 
they do not obtrude themselves that way. I call it 
vulgar.” 

But others thought differently. People began 


82 


FOREST FRIENDS 


to go that way just to see the house that was covered 
with gourds, and in the last days, as the sap was 
drying in the vines. Sunny Gourd found that he 
was attracting much attention. 

Yet he was not to guess just the thing that was to 
happen. 

One day the man who had thrown the seeds for 
luck, returned. And he took but one delighted 
look. 

Soon there was much going on and the old cabin 
came back to life again. And, just as the chimney 
hoped, it was smoking once more. There were 
children running around the weedy garden, and 
voices and laughter brought back the happiness so 
long gone. The blue-jays and the yellowhammers 
greeted the newcomers with delight, and Lady 
Trumpet could only wish that they had seen her in 
her July glory. But to Sunny Gourd happened 
the best of it all; for the man cut many of the 
gourds into bird houses and hung them to a pole 
which he planted by the door. 

Then came the martins to build, losing no time 
at all. The beautiful yellow gourds hung high 
and happy, their hollow shells sheltering a dozen 
beautiful birds. And the best of the gourds, the 
one with the longest handle, which had swung clear 


GOURD AND TRUMPET-VINE 83 

of the door lintel all summer long, and had ripened 
to a magnificent color, was hung by the well. It 
made a dipper fit for a king; that is, if the king 
were a very good man. 

Sunny Gourd knew no words for his happiness. 
And it was joy, not the cold of the winter nights, to 
which he at last succumbed. 

“That’s the way with this wonderful world,” 
said Mr. Mocking-bird. “And I thought he was 
beautiful all along.” 

“And think what he did for me,” the cabin kept 
saying. 

So that even the proud Lady Trumpet knew her 
place at last, and she honestly hoped the dear 
Sunny Gourd would come back in the spring. 


XII 

THE END OF THE TIMBER WOLF 

F ar away to the North, where the great rocky 
capes point out through the sea toward the 
land where it is always snow and ice, there 
lived two shepherds whose little huts were almost 
the only habitations in many and many a mile of 
trackless forest. To be sure, they were within 
traveling distance of a market town. For had 
there been no place for trading the wonderful 
white wool which they sheared every spring from 
their sheep, there would have been no object in 
their living in a place so uncouth where year in 
and year out there were only the grandeurs of earth 
and sky and the thunderous roar of the seas to keep 
them company. 

But the shepherds and their families were not 
unhappy, and the chances are that if you took them 
southward over sea and land to the great cities they 
would only have longed to go back to their own 
cloudy skies, to their wind-swept pastures, and the 
steep cliffs where the sea-gulls nest. And it is cer- 
84 


THE END OF THE TIMBER WOLF 85 

tainly true that their little boys and girls would 
never have been content to have stayed away very 
long from the faithful dogs, who are the most im- 
portant members in a shepherd home. And it is 
of these dogs and what they did to the last of the 
wolves that the shepherds were always telling. 
For the memory of a brave act is slow to die; and 
when you add sagacity to bravery, putting wits 
with strength, you have something which men love 
to relate. 

One of the dogs was Dan, and that was a suitable 
name, for he was what his master called ^‘long- 
headed.” The other was Denmark, for he was so 
great and powerful and possessed of so wonderful 
a voice and appetite, that both by power and dig- 
nity he resembled his people, the noble Danes, and 
no name in the world could fit him better than that 
of his native land. 

Denmark had come to this far-away settlement 
when a ship from the Danish ports had gone to 
pieces in a storm below the cliffs. And the shep- 
herds had taken him home. A dog that could 
swim ashore in such a storm as that had been, when 
the waves turned to ice as they dashed against the 
rocks, was a dog worth keeping. 

But Denmark was not a shepherd dog. His 


86 


FOREST FRIENDS 


shiny coat of black, his heavy build, with a neck 
as powerful as a young bull’s, and his great square 
jaws made him at first sight a dog to be feared. 
But he was gentle and wanted to play and sport like 
any puppy, as soon as he had recovered from the 
shock of shipwreck and his icy hour in 'the water. 
But there was no one to play with in the family of 
the fisherman who had first rescued him from the 
water. And that worthy man, who was a brave 
and silent sort, was gone from home so long at a 
time that he was not sorry when the great Dane 
betook himself to another home. 

Some children were passing the fisherman’s hut 
one morning in early spring, on their way to gather 
wild flowers which grew in the crevices and little 
sheltered nooks of the headlands. They were 
laughing and chasing one another and singing. 
That was all the great dog wanted to hear, for he 
had lived a solemn and uneventful life during 
these weeks that he had lain around the fisherman’s 
place. And the fisherman had not dreamed of 
entertaining his guest. He had not played tag in 
sixty years and you may be sure he was not going 
to begin again for the sake of a great overgrown 
dog. 

Denmark introduced himself to the children in 


THE END OF THE TIMBER WOLF 87 

what he thought was a playful way; but his voice 
was so terrible that the children were at first terror- 
stricken. They had never seen any dogs except the 
beautiful Scottish kind which the shepherds keep. 
They screamed and ran in fear, taking up stones as 
if to throw them. But Denmark was not discour- 
aged. At first he kept his distance, but he fol- 
lowed; and, once they were out on the green pas- 
tures that sloped and curved down to the steep 
shore, he began his most enticing efforts to please. 

The children forgot all about their wild flowers 
then, and they romped and played for hours with 
the dog. Of course they took him home. 

In this new home Denmark was a neighbor of 
Dan, the wise shepherd dog, who came to be his 
lifelong friend; for the shepherds did not live very 
far apart, and it was easy for the dogs to get to- 
gether, as they always did at odd times of night and 
very early in the morning, when they would go far 
afield in a mad chase for rabbits or on the trail of 
a fox. 

Every one had thought the two would fight when 
they met, but the shepherd dog only stood off on 
his dignity a few seconds, and then he spoke to 
the great Dane in the most courteous tones, which 
the Scotch can always employ to such effect. He 


88 


FOREST FRIENDS 


well knew that he was no match for the gigantic 
stranger and he saw no necessity for making a fool 
of himself; besides he really was more than glad 
to find such a companion. 

The comradeship of these two lasted long and 
only came near to its end when they cornered the 
great timber wolf in the sheep pen. This was 
Dan’s crowning achievement, and no one was more 
proud of him than was the brave and courteous 
Denmark, who always gave to the shepherd dog 
the full credit of having planned the whole thing. 
To rid the countryside of this last wolf had been 
Dan’s great desire. No one but he was really sure 
of the wolf’s existence. The time had passed when 
the terrible packs of wolves descended on the sheep, 
and when the belated traveler over the snowy roads 
was in peril of his life from these stalking, fam- 
ished enemies. But the shepherds were by no 
means sure that the wolves were entirely gone, and 
when they sat by the fireside telling stories of the 
dangers and hardships of the old days, they would 
always end by admitting that not yet were the ter- 
rible marauders hunted down. 

Dan’s back would bristle as he lay by the fire, 
and he would pound his tail up and down on the 
hearth as if he entirely agreed. Could he have 


THE END OF THE TIMBER WOLF 89 

spoken, he would have told them that often he had 
smelt the track of something that was not a bear 
nor a fox. Then his blood would freeze in his 
veins when the shepherds, talking in their slow way 
between sips of ale, told how powerful and 
ferocious the wolf can be. They knew of wolves 
that had snapped a dog’s head nearly clean off the 
body with just one flash of their terrible jaws. 
And they agreed that a wolf could not be overpow- 
ered by any dog alone. 

Dan always came to one conclusion in these re- 
citals. If ever he could find the wolf, and could 
employ his friend Denmark to help him, they 
would show their masters that two dogs, at any rate, 
could get the best of the timber wolf. 

It came about at last that a long, heavy winter 
drove the wolf to bolder and more risky operations 
among the sheepfolds. He ventured from the 
dark, forest lairs closer and closer to the sheep pens 
and the shepherd huts. The dogs knew this. But 
in the daytime the wolf was gone far beyond the 
barriers of the steep cliffs of the mountains. And 
at night the dogs could never venture far afield, for 
it was their duty to stay close by the barns and the 
pens where the sheep were sheltered. 

With the coming of spring, Dan’s master had to 


90 


FOREST FRIENDS 


spend many a night at a pen some distance from the 
home. Down close to the shore he kept another 
flock and in it were many little lambs that were 
sick. For in the spring it is a common thing for 
the lambs that are winter-born to be stricken with 
a sickness which only the best shepherds can cure. 
Dan’s master was up and about at all hours of the 
night, and poor Dan was greatly concerned in his 
efforts to keep guard over two folds. But if his 
dear master would take no sleep, Dan would take 
none. He was as wakeful and anxious as though 
he owned the sick lambs himself. 

It was well past midnight and the air was full of 
the wet odors which denote the melting snows and 
the first coming of spring. As Dan was trotting 
up the path from the lower fold, a whiff of that 
strange and terrible odor which he knew to be the 
scent of the wolf, came to his sensitive nostrils. 
He stood still. He snuffed the ground around 
him, but he found no track. The wolf was near, 
but where? 

Then a thought came to him. First, he must get 
Denmark. It would take him but a few moments 
to run across to the neighboring farm, and now was 
the time to put his plan into execution. He was 
much disturbed in his mind, however, for he had 


THE END OF THE TIMBER WOLF 91 

never before left his master at night. But the 
necessity was a pressing one. 

Down the path and across the fields he ran, and 
came to Denmark’s home. The great dog was 
lying by the barn door, under a little shelter which 
formed a kennel. He was wide awake and felt 
very much alert. He confessed to Dan that he felt 
particularly nervous about something. Yes, he 
was sure he could scent the wolf on the stagnant, 
heavy air. 

Back they ran, their tails lowered, and their 
noses to the ground, for this was no hour to play. 
Once they were in sight of the hut where the shep- 
herd and the little lambs were housed, Dan ex- 
plained his plan. 

'‘My master will presently go into that tiny room 
just beyond the pen where the ewes and the sick 
lambs are. He will lie down, and unless the lambs 
bleat again before morning, he will not wake up, 
for he is dead tired. He knows that I am close 
and on guard, and so he does not trouble himself 
about that shaky old door to the fold. The wolf 
could nose it open and not half try. But the wolf 
won’t come here unless he thinks I am watching up 
at the big pen. So I shall go up there. You climb 
the steep steps that lead to the loft over the straw 


FOREST FRIENDS 


92 

beds where the sick lambs are. Go softly, and 
wait. I will follow the wolf down here if he 
comes. And if he gets inside the pen, you spring 
down on him from the loft.” 

All this the canny shepherd dog had schemed 
and perfected as he was running after his friend. 
It was too good to be true, he felt, that here at last 
was the chance he had hoped for. And if he had 
ever feared the wolf, he did not fear him now, but 
was only afraid that the terrible creature would not 
appear. 

Dan hid beneath his master’s barn. From a cor- 
ner in the heavy stone underpinning he could look 
down the yard to the lower pen. Nothing could 
approach that point without his seeing it, unless it 
came from the rocky shore. He waited long and 
the silence was unbroken save for the dripping of 
the water where the snow was melting on the barn 
roof and little rills of it spattered from the eaves. 

Suddenly, so suddenly that his heart stood still, 
he saw two great yellow eyes staring out of the 
darkness. The wolf was in the yard and not ten 
feet from where Dan lay! Then the gleaming 
eyes turned and a great shadowy form hulked past. 
It was so huge that Dan trembled. It made no 
noise and moved slowly and with great caution. 


THE END OF THE TIMBER WOLF 93 

Dan straightened himself out, full length, and 
crawled low in the mud, picking his foothold in 
such a way as to let no twig or pebble move under 
his weight. Any smallest noise would be fatal. 
His heart beat so fast that he could not breathe, but 
he stalked the terrible shadow step by step. 

Suddenly he realized that if the wolf should 
turn, there would be no chance to escape. Perhaps 
the great jaws would kill him before he could even 
cry out, and Denmark would never know about it 
until too late. 

The wolf’s half-defined form suddenly vanished. 
He had made a great, silent spring into the center 
of the sheep pen. For such was the surpassing cun- 
ning of the wolf that he was into the pen and had 
seized one of the lambs all in a single leap. 

There was a roar such as Dan had never heard. 
For Denmark had never spoken in such voice be- 
fore. Then came sounds that woke up every one 
on the two farms and brought everybody running 
to the scene with lanterns and guns. 

Denmark had come down on the wolf’s back, and 
had gripped his throat. Dan rushed in and 
helped in pulling him down. But the damage to 
the dogs was frightful, for the terrible fangs of 
the wolf, hampered as the creature was, had ripped 


94 


FOREST FRIENDS 


and torn his opponents. The three desperate ani- 
mals rolled and tossed and flung themselves in such 
a frantic battle that the shepherd was many times 
thrown down in his attempts to get near them. He 
was afraid that he would stab the dogs instead of 
the wolf. But when the lights came, and the guns 
were pointed, there was no need of either knives 
or shot. The two dogs lay bleeding on the floor of 
the hut and the great timber wolf was twitching in 
death. 

It was the greatest thing that the shepherds had 
ever heard of in their lives. They told of it for 
years, and Dan and Denmark became known for 
miles and were justly happy in their fame. 


XIII 


THE TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO 
HE wonderful adventures and the long, 



beneficent reign of Prince Flamingo are 


Ji matters which would be lost to the world 
were it not for the venerable Mrs. Leatherback. 

For Mrs. Leatherback is not only the oldest and 
the largest of the great turtles, but she is by all odds 
the most distinguished, and is gifted with the most 
accurate power of memory. And her adventures 
in the five hundred years of her life have been 
many. She swims the great Gulf from coast to 
coast, she knows the islands — every one of them — 
she has been far up the rivers which pour their 
floods into the tropic seas, and every bay and la- 
goon knows her presence. And there is no one 
whose arrival is more eagerly welcomed by the 
little people of the lagoons and the coral coves than 
she. For with her vast knowledge goes a power of 
recital which charms her auditors; and if she 
chances to spend a moonlight evening by some quiet 
swamp, or beneath a pleasant sand dune where the 


95 


FOREST FRIENDS 


96 

breeze is good and the outlook charming, you may 
be sure that the intelligent and conservative mem- 
bers of society, such as the Cranes, the Terrapins, 
the Black Swans, and perhaps one of the wise 
Foxes, will be gathered around the distinguished 
visitor. 

And her stories, notably that of Prince Flam- 
ingo, have gone far inland, even to the remote 
North; for the Heron is himself a great traveler, 
and it is, indeed, as he has presented the story, 
rather than in the words of Mrs. Leatherback, that 
it is generally related. Perhaps it has gained some- 
thing in its travels, for time and distance lend a 
charm, and the coral islands are beautiful in per- 
spective. To put it simply, you remember what 
the wise old Mr. Rat said as he nibbled the Dutch 
cheese : “The best things come from a long way 
off.” 

So it is from a remote past, and from the most 
lonely and most beautiful of the tropic islands that 
the romance of the beautiful white flamingo has 
traveled down to us. 

There is a great lagoon or inlet of the sea which 
widens itself into a vast marsh on the southern- 
most extremity of an island. Ships could never 
enter its shallow waters, and it is protected on the 


TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO 97 

land side by miles of dense reeds and water growth. 
No place in the world could be safer for the city 
of the flamingoes. And of all birds, the great, 
pink flamingoes need a secret place to build their 
nests and rear their young. 

Their wonderful city was populous with thou- 
sands of their kind on the beautiful morning when 
this particular little flamingo was born. For never 
had a hunter penetrated to their home, and their 
natural enemies were few. 

Great flocks of flamingoes were wheeling in long, 
curving lines overhead. And they were so pink 
against the early morning sky that you would have 
thought them the reflection of the rosy dawn itself. 
And almost as far across the lagoon as one could 
see, they were standing by their nests feeding their 
babies, or preparing for flight to the distant feed- 
ing grounds. You could see nothing but their 
tall, red forms, thousands of curving necks, and 
wide, beautiful wings. 

Everybody was talking, and the confusion would 
have been terrible except for the fact that no one 
seemed to pay any attention to anybody else, and 
each beautiful flamingo seemed to know exactly 
what he was about. Hundreds of other babies 
were being hatched that morning, and so little 


FOREST FRIENDS 


98 

White Wing (as they called him at first) attracted 
no attention. His mother was in a great state of 
delight over him, of course, and his stately father 
eyed him with approval. But hundreds of other 
parents were in the same state of mind over their 
young, and congratulations had long gone out of 
fashion. 

The beautiful young father had just arrived from 
the distant shore and was the first to feed the pretty 
youngster. He curved his graceful neck down- 
ward and when he kissed the baby, as you might 
say, it was to put into his tiny mouth the wonderful 
juice of the shell fish which the great bird had been 
eating. While he did this the mother preened her 
feathers, and took a few stately steps to stretch her 
legs, for she had been all night on the nest, and then 
she wheeled in a wonderful circle over the lagoon, 
mounting higher and higher until at last she was in 
line with many flamingoes who were heading with 
tilted wings against the wind, on their way to the 
beaches and sand-bars. 

The sun grew very hot and the wind died away. 
The waters of the lagoon flashed in the burning 
light, and the heat was terrible. But over the nests 
where the babies lay the tall birds threw their 



'^His 


Mother Was in 
OF Course, and 


A Great State of Delight over 
His Stately Father Eyed Him 
WITH Approval” 


Him, 


Page g8 



f 




TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO 99 

shadows, and again and again little White Wing 
was turned over in his bed, and he was given in- 
numerable feedings. So at last, when the sun went 
down and the air grew cool, he was surprisingly 
different from what he had been in the morning. 
He was already larger, and his wings and his feet 
were getting strength enough so that he could 
move, and he had found a little voice of his own. 

With successive days he grew apace, and at last 
he tumbled himself out of the nest and began to 
walk. The nest was a mound of mud and sand, for 
all the world like a basket of sticks and moss repos- 
ing on an inverted flower-pot, and not so high but 
what White Wing could struggle back into it when 
the heat of the day came and his watchful father 
took his post by the side of the little home to throw 
the shadow of his stately figure over it. 

At first White Wing was just like the other little 
flamingoes, and with them he began to play on the 
sandy floor of the flamingo city, and with them he 
very soon learned to take short flights as his wings 
developed. But just as a hundred or so of cousins 
began to shed their white down and to grow very 
brown and fuzzy, he began to get whiter and 
whiter. In a few weeks they were beginning to 


100 


FOREST FRIENDS 


shed their brown clothes for the beautiful pink 
feathers which are the proper thing for the 
flamingo. 

J Little White Wing was somewhat distressed 
when his playmates began to jeer at him, and it was 
perplexing to note a lack of affection on the part of 
his beautiful father and mother. For his elders 
were greatly embarrassed. Nothing like this had 
ever happened in their family. And, so far as the 
handsome father could learn by inquiry among the 
oldest birds of Flamingotown, no one had ever 
heard of a white flamingo. But when the neigh- 
bors cast aspersions, and hinted that there must be 
some common blood in that family, then the father 
grew angry and the gentle mother had all she could 
do to keep him from killing little White Wing. 

Every night the little fellow would bury his 
head close to his beautiful mother’s ear, and say: 

‘‘Don’t you think, perhaps, dear mother, that I’ll 
be pink in the morning?” 

And she would tell him to hush and be quiet and 
go to sleep. 

But when morning came he would be as white as 
ever, and his long sad day would begin. No one 
would play with him and he was soon shifting for 
himself. Somehow he picked up a living of tiny 


TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO loi 


fish in the long pools of tide-water that the waves 
left in the soggy lagoon, and when all his playmates 
had gone to bed and it was safe to come among 
them, he would step home, picking his way between 
the nests, and trying to reach his own without call- 
ing attention to himself. 

All this was hard, but it speedily grew worse. 
The King of the flamingoes said that the white off- 
spring must die. 

“Begone, my child, begone!” the mother whis- 
pered to him, for she had heard that little White 
Wing was to die. “Go away, as far as you can. 
Sometime it will be all right. Remember that 
your mother loves you.” 

So that ended White Wing’s childhood. Even 
before the first streak of dawn, the beautiful young 
bird flew out and away. Across the lagoon, miles 
and miles to the westward, over a wide stretch of 
sea he flew until his wings could hardly bear him 
up. Then he sighted land, and he strained every 
nerve to reach it. When at last he wheeled down 
to the sands in the shade of a great mangrove tree, 
his first day’s flight was finished and he was a 
lonely, famished bird on a strange shore. 

But a deep, sweet voice suddenly came to him. 
At first he could not place it. Then he saw to his 


102 


FOREST FRIENDS 


astonishment a huge turtle only a few yards below 
him on the beach. 

‘‘Ah, hal’’ she was saying in her most affectionate 
way. “So there you are! IVe heard of you. 
They drove you out, did they? Didn’t want any 
variety in the family. [Well, well. Sonny, cheer 
up.” 

Then this large and hearty creature pawed her 
way heavily up the sands, and continued her re- 
marks : 

“Funny creatures, you birds. Now look at me 
and consider the difference. I don’t care a clam 
what my children look like. I’m on my way up to 
that sand dune this very blessed minute to lay about 
nine pecks of eggs. And I hope they hatch and the 
young ones won’t get eaten up. But they can come 
out of that shell any color they please, for all I care. 
We turtles don’t worry. We just float along easy. 
That’s the way to live.” 

Then she gave a hearty laugh and settled down 
to digging a pit in the white sands. 

“S’pose you run along. Sonny, and pick up your 
supper. I rather like my own company when I’m 
laying eggs. But just come back a little later and 
I’ll tell your fortune.” 

No one had ever called him Sonny before, and 


TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO 103 

never had he dreamed that such high good humor 
existed an}rwhere. The good old turtle and her 
cheerful ways had suddenly made life worth liv- 
ing. And poor White Wing, on coming to him- 
self, realized that he was very hungry. He 
feasted, indeed, ravenously on fiddler crabs, which 
he otherwise would have despised, and the moon 
was high and he was heavy with sleep when Mrs. 
Turtle, after hours of scratching and pawing, had 
patiently buried her eggs, and was ready to talk. 
What she had to say was brief, but it cast the life of 
White Wing in strange places, and it was on her 
words that he made his great journey. 

‘‘You’re bound to be somebody,” she began. 
“Probably a king. But this is no place for you 
around here. You must go where you are wanted. 
And that is a long ways from this quiet spot. 
There’s a great Emperor who has a palace by the 
smoking mountains. He’s been wishing for a 
white flamingo all his life. If you can get there, 
why, your fortune is made. If you fly with your 
feet to the sunrise until you come to the great river 
mouth, and if you follow that river long enough, 
you’ll see the mountains with the fiery tops. 
That’s the place. And you want to walk right in 
as though you owned the kingdom. Don’t be 


104 


FOREST FRIENDS 


scared when you get there. Just forget about those 
saucy cousins of yours back home and be as grand 
as you know how.” 

Poor White Wing was almost dizzy at this unex- 
pected vision of good things. He did not reckon 
on what the journey meant. But the motherly old 
turtle was particular to tell him of the many 
islands he must pass, and the dangers that he would 
encounter. Then she bade him God-speed, and 
began her toilsome way down the sands, for she was 
intent upon reaching deep water again. 

‘‘I have a long way to go,” she said; and added 
that sometime they would be sure to meet again. 

The second morning found White Wing far out 
at sea once more, straining his eyes for the island 
where he was to get food and water, and cherish- 
ing to himself but one idea — to reach the great 
Emperor who wanted a white flamingo. 

After many days and nights of lonely travel, he 
came to a mountain solid green and black, with 
palms and forest trees ; where there were no white 
shores, but a heavy marshy line of wonderful veg- 
etation. And from the height at which he flew 
he could discern the muddy strip of river water 
which stained the blue sapphire of the ocean. 
This, then, was the river, and far up its course 


TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO 105 

must be the mountains and the city of the great 
Emperor. 

He was right in his conjectures. For a black 
bird, with a yellow bill as big as a cleaver, greeted 
him with familiar and jovial laughter, and told him 
that he was indeed on the right path. This bird 
was a toucan and he told many things of his 
family to White Wing, adding much good advice. 
He was distressed that the beautiful stranger would 
not eat bananas, and explained that he owed his 
good health to an exclusive fruit diet. 

^^But then,” he admitted with a noisy laugh, 
“somebody must eat the fish, I’m sure. And I’m 
glad if you like them.” 

Also this happy-go-lucky toucan volunteered to 
guide White Wing on his flight up the valley. 
But, like so many guides, he fell out before he 
accomplished all that he had promised. For 
scarcely had the two traveled a day’s journey when 
they came upon a prodigious growth of wild figs, 
and the greedy toucan would go no farther. 

Those were hard hours for poor White Wing. 
The river valley was dark and hot, and in the night 
he was perpetually wakened by the startling 
sounds around him. Such noisy parrots he had 
never dreamed of, nor such millions of burning in- 


io6 FOREST FRIENDS 

sects that flashed and flashed their lanterns till the 
heavy vines and palm leaves seemed afire w^ith 
them. And the screams of terror that rose from 
the dark depths of the forest w'hen the great cats or 
the powerful snakes seized their prey, chilled his 
blood. 

But the days brought him at last to higher 
ground, and finally to a wonderful plain where it 
all seemed but so many miles of lawn and clear 
smooth waters. He took heart. Suddenly the 
mountains came in sight. Yes, and one of them 
was sending out a thin stream of smoke into the 
cloudless sky. Another day, possibly that very 
night, he would reach the city of the Emperor. 

Very wisely he waited for the dawn. He had 
seen the high walls, and the housetops, and the glit- 
tering armaments of the palace as they glowed in 
the sunset, and he had heard strange music, a sweet 
confusion of lovely sounds. But from the cliffs 
above the river he watched and waited and preened 
his beautiful white suit. 

When morning came, just as the mountains were 
pink and the city was cool and gray, a grand pro- 
cession mounted a great rock above the Emperor’s 
palace. Trains of slaves and priests there were, 
the sounds of drums, and a heavy, solemn chanting. 


TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO 107 

The Emperor was to greet the sun and they were 
all to worship the great light, for it was their deity. 

Then White Wing soared high above them all. 
His great white form was suddenly thrown against 
the rising sun, and it was beautiful beyond compar- 
ison. No living bird had ever seemed so lovely. 
He could see the crowds of men and women and 
the ranks of priests start back in one motion of sur- 
prise. Then he floated down, slowly and with 
great calm, alighting on the stone altar where the 
Emperor was staring upward in amaze. 

From that hour, after the court had recovered 
from its surprise. White Wing was almost an em- 
peror himself. A park was made for him and 
slaves were in attendance. The tenderest of tiny 
fish and juicy snails were given him to eat, and he 
was a familiar of that barbaric household whose 
slightest inclination was taken to be law, and whose 
smallest preferences were translated into royal com- 
mands. He was ceremoniously tethered with a 
golden chain and a clasp of blue jewels to his thin 
leg, but even such a regal restraint was abandoned 
and the jewels and the beaten gold and the tur- 
quoise were made into a neck chain which he wore 
with great dignity. 

Never could the Emperor enter into his councils 


io8 


FOREST FRIENDS 


and audiences without the Prince of the Dawn, as 
he was called; and White Wing was a sage and 
judicial counselor. He would stand for hours on 
one leg, his jewels flashing upon his breast, his head 
turned at a knowing angle, as if in the profoundest 
thought, a very embodiment of wisdom beside the 
throne. In reality he was sound asleep, a condition 
wherein he set an immortal example for ministers 
of state. 

For years he dwelt in splendor and acquired 
great wisdom. And for the little princes and 
princesses, who were many and lovely, he had great 
affection. 

But of his love for one princess in particular and 
of the jealousies which grew up so that his life was 
plotted against and he was at last to be undone, 
there is another story which the wonderful Mrs. 
Leatherback is always slow to relate. 

She has been known to depart and pursue her 
business in foreign lands, returning at her leisure, 
before she will be induced to relate the rest of the 
story of Prince Flamingo. 


XIV 

PRINCE FLAMINGO’S TRIUMPHANT RETURN 

I N the gorgeous court of the Emperor, where 
White Wing had come into such great good 
fortune, the one person whom everybody 
feared was the splendid ruler himself. For rulers 
have been notable in history for their fickle ways 
and shifting affections, and this emperor was no 
exception to the rule. First it was one favorite 
who fell into disfavor, and then another, and even 
the priests and the councilors, who were the closest 
to him, were as unsafe as the meanest slave. For 
while an underling could be made away with 
quickly and at a word, the Emperor was no less 
willing to let his anger smolder through a long 
and carefully plotted revenge in the case of some 
person who might be next to him in rank. So 
there were mysterious things happening in the great 
stone palace, and White Wing observed soon after 
he came there that nobody seemed really to enjoy 
the wonderful splendors of the court itself but, on 
the contrary, they seemed always anxious to be in 
! 109 


no 


FOREST FRIENDS 


the parks or the city, or even out on the lonely 
plains around it, rather than in the vast rooms of 
stone and silver. 

Nevertheless, White Wing had nothing to fear 
from the stalwart and imperious ruler, for the bird 
was truly his most treasured possession; and if he 
were in an evil mood, the Emperor would often 
betake himself to White Wing’s splendid garden, 
and there he would toy with the bird, asking him 
many questions, and seeming always content to find 
his answer in the flamingo’s sagacious looks, or a 
chance nod of the creature’s head. 

There were the troops of lovely children, too, 
whose quarters were a whole part of the palace 
itself, and these were a delight to White Wing, 
for they were gentle with him and fed him all 
sorts of dainties from their little brown hands. 

Among these was a lovely little girl who grew 
to be a favorite of the Emperor’s and was deeply 
attached to White Wing. 

One day, to the latter’s great distress, he saw 
traces of tears on the child’s face as she came hurry- 
ing across the enclosed garden to the sunken pool 
where White Wing was looking down into the 
water at the gold fish. There happened to be no 
one in the great courtyard at that moment but the 


PRINCE FLAMINGO’S RETURN in 


child and the stately bird. She looked around 
first, to be sure that what she was about to say would 
not be overheard. 

‘‘Oh, Prince of the Dawn, dear Prince,” she be- 
gan, “do you know what has happened? I have 
run away from the others just to tell you. It’s 
the saddest thing in the world. The Emperor is 
sending all the children away to the farthermost 
corner of the land to keep them in hiding. And 
only the soldiers and the priests are to live here 
now. There is only one hour left, for down below 
the great walls there are thousands of bearers and 
mules laden with everything, and a whole army 
of escorts. Maybe we shall never come back.” 

Then she threw herself at White Wing’s feet and 
clutched the flowers on the border of the fountain 
as she cried. 

But this was only the beginning of the troubles 
in that great palace. What the princess had told 
White Wing explained much that he had observed, 
but what the child did not know, and what the 
Emperor feared the most, was the plotting that 
went on against his own life and the rivalries 
among his generals. The kingdom was being at- 
tacked to the eastward. Up that same valley that 
White Wing had followed in his flight, a terrible 


112 


FOREST FRIENDS 


army was marching against the capital of this 
realm. It was an army of men from the other side 
of the world. Such conquerors they were as even 
the Emperor himself had never dreamed of. 

But now excited slaves came rushing in and bore 
the child off. She had scarcely time to say fare- 
well, and poor White Wing heard her sobs as they 
died away through the courtyards and arched cor- 
ridors. Yes, his palace was being deserted, and 
he could walk through empty rooms and suddenly 
stilled hallways without meeting a soul. Every- 
body was in the lower courtyard watching the de- 
parture of the household. 

But just as White Wing, much depressed and 
filled with wonder, came to a little doorway in a 
corner of the great upper hall, he heard voices. 
They were the Emperor’s councilors, he knew, but 
why they should be there now when everybody was 
so busy elsewhere, he wondered. They were not 
talking as usual, but whispering, and a great cur- 
tain had been drawn across the doorway. 

White Wing knew that the chamber was lighted 
by a window that opened to a tiny courtyard of its 
own. To reach this court without passing through 
the room was impossible to any one but such as 
White Wing. He could mount the walls by a 


PRINCE FLAMINGO’S RETURN 113 

short flight from the garden, and descend within 
the secret yard. 

This he did, for he was bound to learn what the 
priests and councilors were up to. The Emperor 
was not with them, and he felt sure that it was 
something treacherous that they were doing. 

He was just in time as he settled down on the 
stone copings outside the great window. First he 
looked to make sure that his shadow was not visible 
across the pavement. He was assured of his safety, 
and knew that his arrival there had not been be- 
trayed by so much as a ruffle of his beautiful wings. 

The voices were deciding the fate of the Em- 
peror and of White Wing too. The priests were 
to tell the Emperor that he must sacrifice the thing 
that he loved the most and that he must do it with 
his own hand. And it was to be arranged that as 
he knelt at the great altar of black stone to kill 
the bird, an arrow should be sent from a secret 
place on the walls, so that the Emperor with his 
back turned to the court should perish then and 
there. 

White Wing’s blood ran cold. This, then, was 
why his great master had always been fearful and 
morose, and often cruel. His own house was full 
of men that hated him and were yet his own broth- 


FOREST FRIENDS 


114 

ers. They were ready now, just as the kingdom 
was rallying to save itself, to seize it all into their 
own hands. They would be rid of him, and his 
mysterious bird too, for they feared in a childish 
way that White Wing had been sent to the Em- 
peror by some divine agent, and they hated the 
innocent creature because they were both fearful 
and jealous of him. 

They were now deciding which one of them 
should let fly the arrow which should kill the Em- 
peror. White Wing could hear them rattling the 
jeweled discs or dice with which he had often seen 
them playing. Evidently the process of making 
the decision was a complicated one, for he heard 
the little carved discs rattling in their box a num- 
ber of times. Then there was silence and a voice 
which he knew was that of the Emperor’s half- 
brother spoke in clear tones: 

“I am glad that it has fallen on me!” 

Suddenly the sound of drums and horns and a 
great deal of shouting broke the silence. The Em- 
peror had said farewell to his household, and in 
great clamor the slaves and the favorites and the 
troops of beautiful children were departing from 
the city. The Emperor’s heralds were calling his 
councilors to the great audience chamber. White 


PRINCE FLAMINGO’S RETURN 115 

Wing heard the treacherous creatures scuttle from 
the little room in haste, and he heard the dice 
which they had been using rattle to the floor as 
they upset a table in their hurry to get out. 
Slowly and cautiously, he looked into the room. 
It was deserted. Then he went in and looked 
around him and picked up one of the little dice. 
It was a small, black jewel, curiously engraven. 
He tucked it under his wing and stalked quietly 
through the curtained doorway, and down the long 
corridor with its shadowy arches until it brought 
him to the sunny courts that bounded his own 
walled garden. 

What he achieved by this simple act of sagacity 
is quickly told. The Emperor, who had known 
nothing of the secret council, guessed immediately 
that it had taken place when White Wing dropped 
the black counter at his feet. They were alone 
in the garden, and it was late in the evening. The 
bird little knew that this was not one of the gaming 
dice at all, but the sacred dice used to settle life 
and death decisions in the Emperor’s secret debates 
with his court. 

Puzzled as the Emperor was at first, he was not 
long in establishing his conclusions. He had just 
been told by the priests that he must sacrifice the 


FOREST FRIENDS 


116 

white flamingo, and his half-brother had been 
alarmingly affectionate, having even caressed his 
shoulder as he thanked the great ruler for having 
placed him at the head of certain troops which 
were of the greatest importance in the forthcoming 
battles. 

Then the Emperor knew what to do. He said 
nothing but was exceedingly watchful. Coming 
early in the morning to White Wing he bade the 
great bird good-by. 

^‘You must fly over to your own people, dear 
bird,’^ he said. ‘‘My enemies will eventually kill 
you if you do not go. And perhaps, when these 
great invaders have taken my city, I shall be re- 
duced to slavery. You have been my greatest 
pleasure, and you have served here all that you 
were intended to. You have saved my life, for 
the scheme to kill me while I was to be offering 
you in sacrifice has all come out. I drew confes- 
sion from certain of the councilors when I had 
them in the dungeons but an hour ago. Never 
would I have suspected them but for your wonder- 
ful means of warning me.” 

Then, in the earliest dawn, before the blazing 
sun had blanched the palace walls. White Wing 
soared slowly into the air, leaving the great Em- 


PRINCE FLAMINGO’S RETURN 117 

peror standing alone by the deserted altar. There 
were no cheering crowds as there had been when 
he came to that terrible city, and in their stead 
were camps and tents and all the sights of pre- 
paring war upon the plains. But the Emperor’s 
hands were upraised and his face was very splen- 
did as he gazed off into the heavens whither his 
wonderful white flamingo was disappearing. 

All that consoled the bird in the sorrow of leav- 
ing his master was the thought of having saved the 
great man’s life. But for that, he would have died 
from misery, believing that he should have stayed 
there until his own life was taken. He little knew 
that thousands of his own kind were waiting for 
him. But such was the case, and he soon learned 
as he flew toward the setting sun, retracing his 
journey, that he was already the prince of birds. 
Whole flocks of beautiful parrots, and great orioles, 
and tropic thrushes would greet him and fly in 
hosts ahead of him. From the great city down 
through the wide valley and the dark forests to 
the coast, he traveled with couriers to tell all the 
birds of his coming. And as he passed, at last, 
out over the ocean to find the island whence he 
had come, there were flocks and flocks of flamin- 
goes overtaking and surrounding him. 


ii8 


FOREST FRIENDS 


One strange thing he saw, and that was a fleet 
of ships with sails greater than ever he had 
dreamed of. These were galleons of the conquer- 
ors, come to destroy the city of barbaric splendors 
where White Wing had been a courtier. But he 
did not know this, and only marveled at the 
sight. 

At last, when his escort had grown to such num- 
bers that, flying as they did in single file, the line 
of birds seemed to arch the sky from east to west, 
he came to the coast which he knew to be his own. 
Then to the selfsame stretch of coral beach, where 
the palms were leaning over the dunes exactly as 
he had left them. With slackened speed and fly- 
ing lower and lower until he caught the scent of 
the old familiar earth, he skimmed above the la- 
goon and was suddenly over his home! White 
Wing flew straight to his mother. 

The thousand relatives and as many new ones 
were there too, and with the arrival of White 
Wing’s friends, who had glided in, one after an- 
other, the confusion of greetings in Flamingotown 
was deafening. 

From then until his death, which was not to be 
for many, many years. White Wing, whose adven- 
tures had become known until they were house- 


PRINCE FLAMINGO’S RETURN 119 

hold words, was the ruler of all flamingoes every- 
where. 

That he was beneficent, you may be sure. And 
for one things quite the greatest thing in his life, 
he instituted a change in family life by decreeing 
that all the gentlemen should take their turn in 
helping the lady birds to hatch their eggs. It 
is from his reign that this admirable custom dates, 
as Mrs. Leatherback will assure you. 

As for that generous lady, she came to have her 
part in the history of the times. For the great 
explorers who came to ravish the kingdom where 
White Wing received such honors, happened to 
take Mrs. Leatherback captive on one of the 
islands. They took her aboard ship and were all 
for taking her back with them to the great court 
of Spain. But even after they had branded her 
with the arms of the court of Castile and Aragon, 
and had secured her to the deck of the galleon, 
she eluded them and fell into the sea. Conse- 
quently she has lived these hundreds of years a 
member, as she is pleased to think, of the greatest 
court in Europe. She soon came in the round of 
her journeys to White Wing’s island and there she 
visited him a long time. So they could recount 
their adventures; and he has never ceased to love 


120 


FOREST FRIENDS 


her for the cheer she gave him that first night of 
his lonely journey. For her part, she is only too 
proud of her Prince Flamingo, as she calls him, 
thereby disputing honors with the gentle mother 
bird, who has always been too happy to talk much 
about her little White Wing. 

So all the above is just as the Heron tells it 
And he is the one who knows Mrs. Leatherback 
the best, and he has had it from her many times. 
Moreover, he always ends with the wish that in 
some way that old turtle could have the last de- 
sire of her life fulfilled. Strange as it may seem, 
she has never seen the wonderful device of the 
Spanish Arms which was branded and carved upon 
her back. It gives her a wry neck to attempt it 
and she has given up trying. So she always lives 
in hope of finding a looking-glass some day at the 
bottom of the sea. 

But meanwhile she contents herself with getting 
her friends to tell her how it looks, and it is be- 
cause the Heron is very particular to do this, and 
do it well, thereby making the old lady feel com- 
fortable, that he can always get her to relate the 
story of Prince Flamingo. 


XV 

MOTHER FOX’S HOSPITAL 
IRGINIA was a very little girl when she 



visited the home of the animals under the 


V garnet hill. She was the only person who 
had ever been there, as the good Mrs. Fox assured 
her, and the only way, indeed, that she can prove 
that she had actually been there at all is to ask her 
pet cat, who accompanied her, whether it is all 
true or not. Always the cat blinks his eyes with 
the most knowing air, and nods his head. So that 
is proof enough. 

Virginia was gathering blueberries and she had 
strayed farther and farther away from the farm 
house until she suddenly found that she could no 
longer see the top of the red chimney, nor the peak 
of the barn. Never had her little feet carried her 
so far into the pastures as this. To make it worse, 
she could not seem to find her way back. The low 
birch trees and the sweet fern seemed taller, and 
the light beneath them was not so warm and bright. 

Virginia started to run, but she had taken only a 


121 


122 


FOREST FRIENDS 


few steps when she tripped and fell. It almost 
seemed that the briary vine in the grass had reached 
out and entangled her. But she was a brave little 
girl and would sooner do anything than cry out. 
It was discouraging to have all the berries in her 
pail spilled over the ground, but she set to work 
picking them out of the moss and leaves, while 
she kept wishing that somebody would come to 
help her. 

Then she pricked her finger on a thorn. It was 
then, she knows, that she began to hear lovely 
voices ; for no sooner had she felt the sharp scratch 
than she heard a sweet sighing song all around her. 

Of all the wishes in her life the greatest was to 
know what the trees and the birds were saying. 
Now she knew. 

For on all sides the voices were as sweet as 
music. ^What pretty blue eyes she has!” and 
^‘How lovely her cheeks are!” and ^^Just see her 
golden hair!” were remarks she caught between 
the sounds of silvery laughter. 

She jumped up, leaving her berries on the 
ground, and started again to run. For she was 
suddenly afraid of these voices, even though they 
were so sweet. 

A familiar Me-ew greeted her. It was her pet 


MOTHER FOX’S HOSPITAL 


123 


cat, Tiger, who then began talking to her as plainly 
as though he had been to school and could read 
and write. 

“How fine this is!” he exclaimed. “To think 
you can hear at last!” and he went on explaining 
that no one had ever understood what he was say- 
ing before. 

“How often,” he purred, “have I followed you 
into the pasture, hoping that you would prick your 
finger on the right sort of thorn, so that at last we 
could talk things over! My, but won’t all the 
world be glad to know of this!” he added. “Why, 
it doesn’t happen once in a thousand years !” 

With that the beautiful gray cat ran off into the 
woods, only to return accompanied by troops and 
troops of beautiful little creatures : the field mice, 
who didn’t seem to object to the cat at all, and the 
squirrels, even the shiny moles, and some very ex- 
cited birds, who flew round and round the little 
girl, calling her name, and telling her how they 
loved her. 

Why she should have followed the cat into the 
woods, Virginia did not know, but he ran ahead 
and bade her follow, and she seemed only too will- 
ing to do so. The trees spoke so pleasantly as she 
passed them that it was impossible not to go on. 


124 


FOREST FRIENDS 


‘‘How she does resemble her great-grand- 
mother!” said one of the trees. It was an aged oak 
who had known Virginia’s family ever since it had 
settled in those parts. She felt that she must stop 
and return the greetings, for she was always care- 
fully polite to old people. 

“Why, it was my little brother,” the tree con- 
tinued, “who was ordained to the ministry in your 
grandfather’s church. Your grandfather did the 
preaching, and my brother held the floor up. He 
also was cut by the builders to carry the major load 
of the roof. You see I have known your family a 
long while. I am the oldest white oak in this 
woodland.” 

But before he could say another word, a beauti- 
ful red fox jumped out of the bushes and told the 
tree to stop talking. 

“Don’t weary that little girl with all your mem- 
ories,” Red Fox said. “If you get started, you’ll 
never stop. And she has an invitation to Mother 
Fox’s Hospital. She must come immediately.” 

All this was very strange. Virginia wished to 
talk to the good old oak some more, but Red Fox 
gave her a knowing look and held out his hand in 
such a cordial way, and so urgently, that she bade 
the venerable tree good-afternoon and ran to catch 


MOTHER FOX’S HOSPITAL 


125 


up with her new friend, who was already beckon- 
ing to her from some distance ahead. Bounding 
along the path beside her came Tiger Kitty, whom 
Virginia was indeed glad to have with her. 

She was no longer on familiar ground. The 
woods were dense, and she felt that she was running 
a long way from home. 

But suddenly Red Fox stopped. They had come 
to what appeared a jagged and moss-grown rock. 
It was the side of an old pit that had been dug 
into the shoulder of the hill, and at any other time 
Virginia would have remembered it as the old 
quarry where once she had been taken by her 
brothers and sisters on a picnic. But now she saw 
that it concealed in reality a doorway. Moss- 
grown and dark, the door was hardly discoverable, 
but it opened easily enough when Red Fox ap- 
plied his key. And standing there to greet Vir- 
ginia and Tiger Kitty was a wonderful old fox, 
with spectacles and a frilled bonnet and the kindli- 
est face in the world. 

“This is my mother,” said Red Fox; “she’s the 
matron.” 

“Yes,” the good old soul admitted, “I am Mother 
Fox, and this charitable home for the destitute of 
the field and forest is named after me.” 


126 


FOREST FRIENDS 


Virginia was embarrassed, but only for a min- 
ute, for sweet old Mother Fox invited her into the 
parlor and then, after she had been offered the 
most delicious of cakes, and the creamiest of milk, 
and had eaten a refreshing supper, she was shown 
through the home. 

Living there was every poor animal that Vir- 
ginia had ever known. And they were all in such 
supreme comfort and having such a good time that 
she was sure she had never seen so many people so 
happy all at once, never in her whole life. 

‘^Our only discontented inmate is Mr. Wolf,” 
said the matronly Mrs. Fox. “Would you like to 
see him?” 

She led the way down a long hall to where Mr. 
Wolf was seated in a little room of his own, gnaw- 
ing and snapping at his nurses, who were none 
other than the hedgehog and the big snapping 
turtle. 

“Two rather sharp people for nurses,” Red Fox 
remarked, almost in apology; “but you see it takes 
some one with a good deal of character to handle 
him.” 

In a great room which was a dining-hall, with 
high tables for the big animals, and low ones for 
the little folk, she saw the animals that were priv- 


MOTHER FOX’S HOSPITAL 127 

ileged to be there eating the most tempting dishes. 
There was lettuce salad for the rabbits, and corn- 
bread for the field mice, and blackberry pudding 
for the whole partridge family, and persimmon 
jam for the ’possums, and even lily roots creamed 
and on toast for the poor old muskrats. 

“All charity,” said Red Fox. “All charity! 
Out in the world every one of these poor animals 
was cruelly hurt, or starved. Of course, we’re 
hunted and stoned, and chased, and shot at. That’s 
all men want — a chance to kill us. Here’s where 
we take care of our cripples and paupers.” 

Virginia was wonderstruck and was about to ask 
a question, when a lame but beautiful lady tapped 
Mother Fox’s shoulder and asked her to introduce 
the visitor. 

“Oh, surely! Pardon me. Lady Orchid.” 

Lady Orchid put the sweetest, tenderest hand 
into Virginia’s, and the little girl looked into the 
loveliest flower face in the world. 

“I’m Lady Arethusa,” the wonderful creature 
breathed, as she curtsied very low to the little girl. 
“You see I’m crippled. I was pulled up by the 
roots in such a careless way. You did it yourself, 
if you remember, only the other day.” 

The little girl wanted to cry, but the lovely 


128 


FOREST FRIENDS 


orchid repented having come too close to the truth, 
and quickly added : 

‘^No ; it was your brother, possibly. At any rate, 
I beg you never to pull any of us out in that violent 
way again. I am sure we all love you too much. 
We Arethusas have lived on your place a great 
many years. The small white violets, by the way, 
that live by the door-step at your home, tell me that 
they can’t get close enough to you and your sweet 
mother, they love you so. And there is a lovely 
begonia living here whom your mother lost, despite 
her care. Some one neglected it, and it died of 
thirst. Your mother was visiting at the time, I 
believe.” 

^‘Yes,” said Mother Fox; “that is so often the 
case. Fathers and brothers are very careless in 
such matters. They are not so tender as a rule 
with their plant cousins under their roof.” 

Then, as they left the dining-room, where the 
animals were just reaching the dessert, who should 
come flying up to Virginia but a beautiful oriole. 
He too, it seems, knew the little girl. 

“Yes, indeed, dear child,” he sang out to her; 
“I have known you a long time. I live in the elm- 
tree. And I want to thank you for those lovely 
threads that you put out on the lawn for me when 


MOTHER FOX’S HOSPITAL 


129 

I was refurnishing my house. I am here to call 
on some relatives, but I will sing to you by your 
window in the morning.” 

Then Virginia remembered that a ball of beau- 
tiful worsted had been missing from her mother’s 
work-basket after it had been left on the porch. 
This explained it all. She was astonished, but the 
gray cat laughed out merrily: 

^‘Yes, he stole it; but the dear bird thinks you 
left it there for him. If you look out of the attic 
window when we get home you can see his nest 
in the elm. It’s mostly blue worsted.” 

^‘Why didn’t you tell me before, if you knew it?” 
Virginia asked, really grieved at Tiger Kitty’s lack 
of confidence. 

“Why,” repeated the cat, and then he only smiled 
very broadly, “because you were always deaf, my 
dear.” 

Presently, while they were walking down the 
corridor, the merriest music burst on Virginia’s 
ear. In a room all to themselves, the rabbits were 
rehearsing for a minstrel show. They were 
dancing in the most giddy fashion, and she could 
not help laughing aloud as she watched them. 

But as she laughed, something happened, and 
the cat, who had just opened his mouth to say 


FOREST FRIENDS 


130 

something, closed it with a sudden look of disap- 
pointment. 

‘Tou see, she spilled the berries, and fell asleep 
while trying to pick them up.” 

It was a familiar voice. Virginia turned 
around. Her mother and big brother and little 
sister were kneeling beside her in the ferns. It 
was evening and she could hear the cows calling 
to be let through the farm gate. . 

“And I never said good-by to Mr. Red Fox!” 
she exclaimed. Then she rubbed her eyes and 
smiled, for they were all kissing her, and big 
brother was putting her on his shoulder. 

Her strange experience she kept to herself for 
a long time. But she talked it all over with Tiger 
Kitty, and he seemed to understand it, every word. 
Most of all when she climbed the attic stairs and 
looked at the bird’s nest, it was of blue worsted, as 
plain as plain could be. 

And she was sure then and for the rest of her life 
that the birds and the flowers loved the old home 
with its trees and its gardens as much as she did. 

And she always thought of sweet Lady Orchid 
when she gathered wild flowers. 


XVI 

WHY MRS. CROW IS BLACK 

I T was the dead of night. Old Mr. Fox left his 
cozy den and went to call on his friend, the 
wise old Mrs. Owl. For many years it had 
been his custom to do this, for he found her the 
most engaging company. Her home was in a 
hollow tree and she was always obliging enough 
to put her head out the window and inquire who 
was there, if any of her friends knocked hard and 
long at the basement door. It was useless to call 
in the daytime : she was always asleep while the sun 
shone, and in the early evening she would be 
abroad hunting her supper. But after the cocks 
crew at midnight, and people in their beds were 
turning over to get their best sleep, Mrs. Owl 
would come flying through the woods and across 
the river, and up the hill to her own great tree, 
having eaten heartily of whatever she may have 
found. Then she was ready to sit on her window 
ledge for a visit with her friends. 

So it was very late, and the woods was still as 
131 


FOREST FRIENDS 


132 

death, when patter, patter, through the underbrush 
came Mr. Fox to call on Mrs. Owl. Arriving at 
the bridge across the river, he jumped nimbly to 
the hand-rail and trotted on that narrow board as 
easily as a cat walks over the fence. For he was 
sure some dog would pass that way, come morning, 
but no dog would ever scent the wise fox who walks 
the rail. 

‘^Always sniffing at the ground, these foolish 
dogs,” thought Mr. Fox; and he laughed to him- 
self as he jumped down into the bushes and ran 
on to the hill and the great cottonwood tree, 
whither Mrs. Owl herself had just returned. 

With a big stick he hit the tree a hard blow. 
Then he barked politely and sat down to wait. 

Way up in the top of the dead tree the window 
was open. Two great eyes looked out. 

^ Who’s there? Who’s there?” came in the most 
dreadful tones. 

“Only your friend, a brother thief,” laughed Mr. 
Fox; for in the company of Mrs. Owl he could 
afford this slanderous admission. 

“Ha, ha I” screamed Mrs. Owl, who didn’t mind 
being called a thief at all. In fact, she laughed 
so hard and long that every living being asleep 
in those woods awoke and shivered with a sudden 


WHY MRS. CROW IS BLACK 133 

terror. For it was the laughter of Mrs. Owl, you 
know, that made the blacksnake’s blood run cold, 
and never has he been able to warm it up again, 
even by lying all day in the sun. 

She scratched her ear and leaned a little farther 
out. After controlling her mirth, she grew very 
solemn and whispered down to Mr. Fox that she 
had discovered but an hour ago a certain roost 
with the most enticing hole in the roof. 

‘^Easy and safe, you know,” she giggled. ‘‘Two 
broilers and a fowl IVe had this very night.” 
Then she laughed again, “Ha, ha! Hoo, hoo!” 

But Mr. Fox knew she was lying. She was only 
trying to get him into trouble. 

“Thanks for the hint,” he barked; “but it is 
easier to get in by the roof than out by the roof, 
you know, unless one is gifted as you are with 
wings, Mrs. Owl.” 

“True, true,” she said, in her wisest tones. 

“And I really came, dear Mrs. Owl, to ask a 
question of you. Can you tell me why the crows 
are black?” 

There was a long silence, for Mrs. Owl must 
have time to think. All things were known to her, 
but she revealed her knowledge only with the 
greatest deliberation. 


FOREST FRIENDS 


134 

First she looked all around, then she laughed 
again, this time so loud and long that Mr. Fox 
thought she never would have done, and at last 
she exclaimed: 

“Why, Mr. Fox, the crows are black for just the 
same reason that you ought to be black and I ought 
to be black too.” 

At this Mr. Fox was puzzled, but as Mrs. Owl 
seemed to think it such a joke he joined in her 
laughter, and between them they made the most 
distressing noise. 

“You see,” she said at last, while she held her 
sides and caught her breath. “You see, the whole 
miserable lot of them, the crows, used to be as 
bright and giddy as overgrown humming-birds. 
Red, white, and blue, they were. They would 
have been the national bird, I’m told, but the 
eagle always takes that honor by his overbearing 
ways. For my part, such honors are doubtful. 
I’d rather stand for wisdom than for politics. 
But, be that as it may, the crows were once the 
gayest of the birds. It was their mad career of 
theft and murder which brought the change.” 

At this they both screamed with laughter again, 
and it was a long time before Mrs. Owl could re- 
sume her story. 


WHY MRS. CROW IS BLACK 135 

“Complaints against the crows came from every- 
where. The robins — bless their souls — the larks, 
the pigeons, and every family you ever heard of, 
were determined to do something to the crows for 
snatching their young ones and stealing their eggs. 

“Of course, you know, similar complaints have 
been lodged against me,” she added; “but the point 
is, my family was never caught. Besides, the 
crows get corn and such to eat, and the whole world 
felt that the crow was stepping out of his class, 
you know, when he took to eating birds and eggs 
and frogs. It was the greediness of an upstart 
family. That’s what it was.” 

The very thought of this aspect of the case made 
Mrs. Owl so indignant that she screamed and 
hooted loud and long. 

“It was all long, long ago,” she said. “The 
birds met in a great meeting. Something had to 
be done, and it was thought that war would be 
declared and the crows would all be killed or 
driven to live on a lonely island. But somebody, 
Mrs. Yellowhammer, I think it was, put in a word 
in their favor. She was a tender-hearted fool and 
recalled something decent the crows had done. 
She said that they had left her a lot of acorns one 
cold winter, and she felt so much obliged to them. 


FOREST FRIENDS 


136 

The crows would have been done to death except 
for what she said. There were two doves on the 
jury, too; and they’re a weak and sentimental lot, 
you know. At any rate, the sentence which the 
judge, a wonderful old owl, pronounced, was to 
the effect that the crows must forever go in black. 
They had to fly all the way to Egypt, where the lit- 
tle people live, to get their clothes changed. 

^^Oh, it was hard for them. Poor Mrs. Crow 
could think of nothing to say but Caught! 
Caught! Caught! and that grew to be Caw! 
Caw! Caw! after a while. Sometimes I feel a 
little sorry for her and her family; but, as you 
know, they are very much down on me. I can’t 
imagine why.” 

She winked a long green wink at Mr. Fox. For 
she knew, and he knew, that Mrs. Owl had that 
very night eaten all the little crows she could steal 
from their nests. And he knew that Mrs. Owl 
would never dare to fly abroad in daylight for the 
crows. Then both of them made the woods fairly 
shiver with their laughter. 

But it was growing light, and Mrs. Owl and Mr. 
Fox both felt that a night well spent deserved a 
long day of sleep, so they parted and Mr. Fox 



‘The Bteds Met in a Great Meeting. Something Had to Be 

Done” 


135 




WHY MRS. CROW IS BLACK 137 

went to his home, greatly pleased to know why the 
crows are black, and why they must forever say, 
“Caught! Caught! Caught!” 


XVII 


MRS. MUSKRAT’S POOR RELATIONS 

M rs. muskrat owned a beautiful home 
of her own on the edge of the mill-pond. 
She had built the house years ago, and had 
kept it in the best of repair. It was cleverly con- 
cealed at a point where tufts of grass and over- 
hanging bushes afforded protection, and at the 
same time it was well out in the pond, quite inac- 
cessible to Mrs. Muskrat’s enemies. 

The roof rose like an inverted bowl over a cir- 
cular wall of mud and sticks; and so neatly were 
the straws and sticks matted over the top that the 
house seemed at first glance to be but an accidental 
confusion of dried leaves and old branches. This 
was as it should be, for Mrs. Muskrat, like many 
persons of good taste, preferred to have a home of 
interior elegance and ease to one with merely a 
showy exterior. 

It was autumn and Mrs. Muskrat was congratu- 
lating herself upon her well filled larder and the 
prospects of a comfortable winter. 

138 


MRS. MUSKRAT’S POOR RELATIONS 139 

“I am always glad,” she would say to the neigh- 
bor that happened in, ‘T am always glad that I 
moved down here from that upper pond when I 
did. It was a poor place to live and one was in 
constant danger of the water’s being drawn off. 
Those farmers are so inconsiderate you can never 
tell when they will take it into their heads to drain 
the meadows, and then it is all up with us poor 
creatures.” 

She would then continue her narrative, after the 
manner of many people who take interest in no 
affairs but their own, and would probably burden 
her caller with the full account of how she had 
prevailed upon her husband, the young Dr. Musk- 
rat, to leave the shallows of the upper home and 
set up for himself on the edges of the deep and 
permanent mill-pond. 

“And,” she would always conclude, “a mill-pond 
is so very much more aristocratic — not to mention 
a much better growth of provisions. Personally, 
I love deep water, and the sound of the mill-wheel 
is dear to my heart. No; I shall never go back to 
the upper pond.” 

Always the neighbors knew that Mrs. Muskrat, 
in alluding to the elegance of the mill-pond society, 
was, in point of fact, repudiating her poor rela- 


FOREST FRIENDS 


140 

tions, who had gone on living in the distant mead- 
ows. For, like many people who move to the town 
and prosper, waxing fat and successful, she was 
given to a feeling of pity that sounded a good deal 
like contempt for the poor relatives back in the 
country. 

Little did she realize what the winter was to 
bring forth as she swam in and out of her front 
door, crossing to the opposite shores and back, al- 
ways bringing the tenderest roots and lily stalks 
for her winter provisions. She was very content 
with the world, although she regretted the depar- 
ture of her best friend, Mrs. Thrush, whose nest 
was in the alders almost over her very head, and 
she was sorry that the turtles had found it necessary 
to retire into the deep mud for their winter’s sleep. 

The sun was bright, however, and cheerful 
sounds came from the fields where men were load- 
ing pumpkins into the farm wagon, and from the 
orchards came the laughter of merry boys gather- 
ing apples. This drew her attention to the old, 
neglected tree which grew on the bank of the pond. 
Its fruit was bright, and there was much of it, but 
it hung high. 

^Tf only there comes a good brisk wind to- 
night,” she thought, ^‘fhose apples will blow to the 


MRS. MUSKRAT’S POOR RELATIONS 141 

ground; and I can think of nothing more to my 
taste than a bit of fresh fruit.” 

Hardly had she indulged these pleasant thoughts 
of good eating, when she was surprised to see a 
visitor approaching her house. It was none other 
than the leanest and poorest of her cousins from 
the upper pond. Something in his presence told 
her of trouble to come. And her first question 
was not at all too polite. 

^‘Why, what on earth are you down here for?” 
exclaimed Mrs. Muskrat. ‘‘Haven’t you anything 
to do at home? I should think you would be busy 
putting in your own winter stores.” 

Before she could get any further, her lanky 
cousin interrupted her. 

“Yes, yes; you would naturally think, Cousin 
Flattail, that we would be as busy as you are. But 
we have no longer any home to store things in, and 
we are at the edge of winter with starvation ahead 
of us. Farmer Jones drew the pond off yesterday. 
Already the shores of our poor meadow are 
drained of every drop. Our house is high and dry 
and we shall freeze to death if we stay in it.” 

With that they both looked up, for in the quiet 
society of the mill-pond a great confusion reigned. 

All the poor relations were coming down from 


FOREST FRIENDS 


142 

the upper meadows! Cousins, uncles, aunts, and 
brothers-in-law. It was an invasion — muskrats 
big and muskrats little. 

Mrs. Muskrat gave one look and then bobbed 
down into the water and rushed through her house 
to lock the back door, scuttling again to the front 
to secure her main entrance by seating herself di- 
rectly across it. 

‘‘There now!” she chattered angrily. “I’ll 
watch any of you get into this house!” 

For in the confusion of things people are often 
more distracted than need be, and Mrs. Muskrat 
was behaving very ugly and selfish because she 
hadn’t taken time to think. All her neighbors be- 
haved in much the same way at first; but when 
they saw the poor little baby cousins and reflected 
upon what this misfortune meant to the children, 
their hearts softened, and one by one the doors 
were opened, and the families invited in different 
ways to make the best of it. They must all live 
through the winter somehow. 

But what they thought was going to be the sea- 
son of the greatest hardship turned out to be the 
most brilliant winter that the muskrats had ever 
known, and the cousins all concluded that they 
never before had really appreciated one another. 


MRS. MUSKRAT’S POOR RELATIONS 143 

Most exceptional, indeed, was Mrs. Flattail 
Muskrat’s good luck, for she chose to live with her 
the cleverest of her nephews, the lively little 
Skinny Muskrat, who proved to be a wonderful 
musician. Every evening of the long winter they 
had delightful parties and dances in the snug quar- 
ters of their homes. All about them would be 
solid ice, and overhead, around the roofs, the 
driven, packed snow; but within, where all was 
warm and snug, there was the greatest merriment. 

Little Skinny Muskrat was in great demand. 
His aunt always went with him out to supper or 
to spend the evening. And it was surprising how 
much more she got out of her neighbors than ever 
she had enjoyed at their tables before the adoption 
of this charming nephew. 

It was the usual thing to say after supper: 
‘‘And now won’t Skinny give us some music? He 
plays so beautifully on his toe-nails!” 

So the obliging Skinny would blow through his 
nails and produce the scratchiest and most exciting 
dance tunes in the world. 

So eagerly was his society sought, that Mrs. 
Muskrat at last hit upon the idea of inviting her 
neighbors in, but with the hint that they bring 
their suppers with them. This was the crowning 


144 


FOREST FRIENDS 


achievement of her thrift, and she never ceased to 
congratulate herself upon having thought of it. 
For her house was full of food from top to bot- 
tom, and she became the most popular person in 
the happy group of Muskrat society. 

But winter melted very slowly into spring. And 
the provisions for everybody were growing low. 
Day after day Muskratdom peeped out into the 
cold world that was still black and gray. Not a 
sign of anything green ; not even a bluebird in the 
orchards. Little by little the muskrats grew thin- 
ner and it was harder to be gay. At last, just as 
they were wondering why they had ever eaten so 
merrily, and ever been so prodigal with what they 
had, and several of the muskrat elders were up- 
braiding them roundly in an effort to put the blame 
on some one, what should they hear but a robin! 
And in a few days the cowslips began to show the 
green tips of their leaves. Then at last the grass 
on the edge of the pond showed sweet and green 
where it had lived all winter under the heavy 
snows. 

Their hard times were over! And in all the 
general rejoicing, nothing gave them greater hap- 
piness than to think they had all weathered it to- 
gether. 


MRS. MUSKRATS POOR RELATIONS 145 

Nor was Mrs. Muskrat sorry to hear of the im- 
mediate marriage of her nephew Skinny with one 
of the prettiest little lady muskrats in the mill- 
pond. She was thereby able to congratulate her- 
self again. This time as a matchmaker. And so 
long as Mrs. Muskrat could be thinking of how 
clever, or how thrifty, she was, her happiness was 
complete. 

But you may judge of her neighbors’ surprise 
when she left her snug house in the mill-pond and 
went back with Skinny and his wife, and many 
of the relatives who moved to the meadows. 
Something told her that the roots and the grasses 
and the tender bulbs would be engagingly delicious 
when the waters came back on the meadows ; and 
she was a wise old muskrat, for those who went 
back lived a long summer on the, fat of the land. 
Here again she felt the wisdom of her course, and 
she ventured to be truly hospitable by urging her 
adopted relatives to return with her, upon the ap- 
proach of winter, to the deep, warm pond. 

That is why there is both a winter and a summer 
residence in the highest society the world over. 
It is a sad lot for the muskrats who have not both 
a pond and an upper meadow to enjoy suitably 
and in season, as the good earth intends it to be en- 


FOREST FRIENDS 


146 

joyed. But this last remark Is a bit of wisdom 
from the mouth of Mr. Owl, and we must credit 
him with it. 


XVIII 

MR. WILD GOOSE AND MRS. GREBE 



AR, far out on a great prairie there is a wide 


river which flows lazily between its banks, 


Jl apparently going nowhere at all, but in 
reality bearing steadily toward the rising sun and 
the deep valley where another river rolls mightily 
to the southward and the ocean. The prairie is 
not level like a floor, but rises and falls in ridges 
that are sometimes miles apart, and between these 
rolling heights of the grassy land are unnumbered 
little lakes: bodies of sparkling water hidden in 
the folds of the land. 

It was over this vast stretch of plains that the 
great birds of the Arctic were winging their way 
one early morning in the late summer, for they 
had started to their winter quarters in good sea- 
son. 

^^Honk, honkr the leader of the birds kept call- 
ing; and as he trumpeted, those in the rear would 
answer him, for even as they flew they had much 


FOREST FRIENDS 


148 

to talk of, and just now the whole flock of them 
were discussing the subject of breakfast. 

For they had been flying ever since the peep of 
dawn, and had come through mists and the cold 
upper air, covering a hundred miles of their jour- 
ney before the sun really bathed the plains in 
light, and they were looking for the spot which 
was familiar to them as a good one for breakfast. 

Lower and lower they flew as the leader kept 
signaling to them, until at last the wedge-shaped 
formation in which they traveled came like a 
pointed kite in long, sliding descents to within a 
few hundred feet of the earth. 

They could see, of course, all the lay of the land 
for many miles around; but they were particular 
geese, a trifle fussy as you might say, and by no 
means would any one of the many little lakes suit 
their fancy. They were flying toward one spot 
out of all others which could afford just what they 
wanted for a meal. 

At last they apparently settled down to a definite 
direction for they ceased to describe the slanting 
circles, and in one long slide through the air, their 
wings stretched perfectly motionless, they coasted 
to the ground. 


MR. WILD GOOSE AND MRS. GREBE 149 

The deep grasses almost hid them from view, 
but the little people who lived there saw them, and 
it was with great surprise that their friends turned 
from their feeding and pluming and bathing to 
exclaim over this sudden arrival. 

There were Mr. and Mrs. Wild Duck, and their 
beautiful brood of little ones, and there were many 
of Mrs. Prairie Chicken’s family, as well as 
crowds and crowds of little Redbirds and many of 
the handsome Kingfishers, all chattering at once 
over an ample breakfast table. For there was a 
solid growth of wild celery around this lake, a 
bed of plants so dense that it was for all the world 
like the heaviest moss. And of all things beloved 
by the wild fowl, this juicy and spicy celery is the 
favorite. 

The leader of the newcomers looked about him. 
That was the first thing for him to do, under all 
circumstances ; for he was the oldest and the wisest 
of the flock and as a watchman he was sagacious 
beyond all others in his family. While his mate 
and all the others fell to tearing at the tender 
shoots of celery, scarcely paying attention to any- 
thing but their voracious appetites, he was stand- 
ing with head erect and eyes turning in all direc- 


FOREST FRIENDS 


150 

tions to be sure of no untoward sign. He could see 
and even scent danger a long way off. 

Apparently he was satisfied for the moment, for 
he fell to and nibbled as the rest were doing, with 
his head almost buried in the rich tangle of celery. 
And as he progressed in his feasting, he came 
closer and closer to the edge of the lake, until sud- 
denly he was just above a nest that lay almost en- 
tirely hidden from view. 

It was the home of little Mrs. Grebe, the very 
handsomest and the shyest of the people dwelling 
here. She was right there by her nest of sticks, 
which literally floated on the water, and her shin- 
ing neck of velvety feathers and her brown and 
silvery body were strikingly beautiful in contrast 
to the deep green of the rushes and reeds. 

“Why, my dear friend!” the noble Wild Goose 
exclaimed. “How you surprised me! Though of 
course I knew you lived here. This is not the first 
year we have visited this place, by any means, and 
yet, when we flew North last spring and stopped 
here I do not remember seeing you.” 

“Oh, Mr. Goose,” came in quick reply, “you 
can’t imagine the misfortunes that have overtaken 
me; and it was on their account that I was not here 
in the early summer when you passed over.” 


MR. WILD GOOSE AND MRS. GREBE 151 

With that Mrs. Grebe hung her dainty head, 
which was beautifully tufted about the ears, giving 
her the look of wearing a jaunty cap. 

am the Widow Grebe,” was all she could say. 

Mr. Goose dried his eyes by rubbing them on his 
snowy breast. For, although he was a stern old 
gander, he had the most melting heart for the sad 
plight of widows and orphans. 

And the fatherless ones were immediately dis- 
covered to view, for Mrs. Grebe moved ever so 
slightly and six tiny little Grebes twittered and 
chirped at her feet. 

The sight was very moving, and the doughty old 
warrior commanded himself sufficiently to ask the 
particulars. 

^‘Yes,” the dainty little lady Grebe said. “We 
were a devoted pair, my husband and I. You 
know the Grebes, how they are like to die of 
broken heart if one or the other is killed. They’re 
like the cooing dove, you know, very devoted. 
But my dear, beautiful mate was shot before my 
very eyes. Yes, the bullet was meant for me, be- 
cause it is the mother Grebe’s beautiful breast 
feathers that they are after. But it was he who 
was killed. We both dived, but when I came up 
from under the water after going as far as I could, 


FOREST FRIENDS 


152 

I looked in vain for him. Men in a boat were 
reaching out for something, and it was my own 
mate they were lifting up from the water. When 
they saw it was not the mother bird, they threw 
his body back into the lake. After a while it sank 
and I knew that it was all hopeless.” 

Mr. Goose knew not what to say. But before 
he could even begin to express his feelings, the 
gentle Grebe added to her account of woes the fact 
that her first brood of the season had all perished, 
too. 

“These little fellows are but just hatched,” she 
went on. “They will never know their dear fa- 
ther; but what happened to the first brood of the 
season is the worst. We were, as you know, far 
south of here. Another lake where we go for the 
winter. No one knew that in that lake dwelt the 
worst of snapping turtles. But such was the fact. 
In one month our brood of dear little chicks was, 
every one of them, seized while swimming and 
dragged under by the great turtles!” 

Then, like so many people who have suffered as 
much, Mrs. Grebe began to apologize for telling 
her woes. 

“It is only because you are so very traveled and 
wise, Mr. Goose, that I tell you all my afflictions. 


MR. WILD GOOSE AND MRS. GREBE 153 

Nothing, of course, can amend the loss of my dear 
mate. But how I am to protect my children from 
all my enemies I cannot say. I am sorely trou- 
bled.” 

Mr. Goose all this time had only pretended to 
eat, for he was too much interested and too deeply 
concerned to do aught but attend to Mrs. Grebe’s 
sad plight. 

He thought for a long moment, and then said 
that he would give her two pieces of advice, but 
that she must wait a few moments until he had 
thought over his many observations and experi- 
ences. 

“True,” he said, “I have seen many ways of 
caring for children. And you are without assist- 
ance. Now my nest is built in almost inaccessible 
places, and Mrs. Goose has few enemies in the wa- 
ter to fear. Our chicks are too large to be pulled 
under the water by turtles, and our nest is too well 
defended by the sentry goose for us to fear the fox 
or the wolf. But you, poor Mrs. Grebe, you are 
indeed sorely put to it. You must do two. things. 
First, I am sure, you must build farther out from 
the shore; and, second, you must take your chil- 
dren with you on your back when they first ven- 
ture over the pond. 


FOREST FRIENDS 


154 

‘‘And,” he added slyly enough, “don’t grieve too 
long. Perhaps you v^ill fall in love again.” 

Just then, however, he seemed to be suddenly 
mindful of his own family. For a distant shot was 
heard in the air. Everybody stopped eating, and 
listened, but nothing more was to be heard. The 
hunters were far off, although their presence any- 
where within hearing was full of alarm. 

“Remember what I say,” the splendid traveler 
called back, for he was marshaling his flock. 

Mrs. Grebe could scarcely comprehend what 
was going on, for it seemed but a second before all 
the beautiful geese were in the air again, flying 
low over the plain. They would elude the hun- 
ters. That she knew. But she wished the wise 
captain of them all could have stayed just a little 
longer to explain what he meant. How could she 
carry her young ones with her? And how build 
on the water? 

But it is long practise that works out in perfec- 
tion; and Mrs. Grebe was soon able to teach her 
babies to climb on her back and to perch there 
with their beaks buried in her soft feathers, and 
their little toes digging ahold of her. And she 
began pushing her nest farther and farther out into 
the water until it seemed scarcely to have any con- 


MR. WILD GOOSE AND MRS. GREBE 155 

nection with the land at all. Alone, and fearing 
to leave her nest unguarded, to this day she covers 
it with sticks and straw, and when she turns the 
eggs over that she is hatching, she smears them 
with mud until they are very hard indeed to find. 
For she is the most suspicious of birds. 

But if she was indebted to Mr. Wild Goose for 
his advice, he, on his part, felt that he had only 
drawn on his learning as a great traveler. Had 
he not seen the tropic swans with their young rid- 
ing upon their shoulders? And he knew what it 
was for. So he was only a generous and observant 
bird when he made the suggestion. 

Later that season, however, when a great prairie 
fire swept the region and burned everything to the 
very edges of the lakes, Mrs. Grebe was thankful 
indeed that she could carry her babies with her to 
the center of the lake, and there ride in safety with 
them while the reeds and the grasses blazed on the 
margin. 

And of this she told Mr. Goose the year after, 
when he came back. He had helped better than 
he knew. But of her second marriage she said 
very little, and he did not embarrass her with ques- 
tions. 

Oh, yes, there is much that the great Wild Goose 


156 FOREST FRIENDS 

knows and he is not too proud to draw upon his 
wisdom when it is a matter of helping even such 
little stay-at-home people as Mrs. Grebe. 


BABY FOX AND MRS. BEAR 



HERE is a great river which comes rushing 


through the mountains, where the cliffs are 


K dark with trees, and the heavy snows are 
slow to melt, even when spring has made the val- 
leys green and warm. Here, on a cliff, snug and 
warm beneath the roots of a great tree, lived Mrs. 
Bear and her family of cubs. Three baby bears 
there were; and in their fine black coats with dark 
brown edges they were very handsome. 

For their playmate, however, there was a little 
stranger. Just a funny little fox, whose fur was 
the color of a flame of fire. He was a rare little 
fox, being of such a lovely color. Had the hunters 
in the valley dreamed that he was living on the 
mountain above their very farms, they would never 
have rested until they got him, for his skin would 
bring a fortune in the world of men and money. 

But of this the little fox knew nothing, for ever 
since the day that good Mrs. Bear had found him, 
lost and weak and hungry, where he had fallen 


FOREST FRIENDS 


158 

down to sleep in the snow, he had led the happiest 
of lives with the little baby bears. They could not 
run as fast as he could, nor could they bark as 
prettily, but they were wonderful at turning somer- 
saults, and at playing leap-frog, and they were 
more than generous to him. They gave him the 
best place at dinner, and when they all went to 
sleep, they cuddled him up between them, while 
the big Mrs. Bear slept with her nose to the door. 
Blow the wind as it might, they were all as warm 
as toast. 

But one fine day in early summer Mrs. Bear 
broke the news to her family that the foxes, one and 
all, were looking for their child. One way or an- 
other, the news had gone down from the mountain 
to the high pastures and fields at the edge of the 
farms, and it was joy to the heart of the fox mother, 
to learn that her beautiful Fireflame was alive. 

Of course he must go back. And by an arrange- 
ment most agreeable to Mrs. Bear, she was to ven- 
ture with her adopted baby as far as the blackberry 
patches and the great maple groves at the foot of 
the mountain. The foxes would meet her, and 
with sweet little Fireflame safe in the bosom of his 
family, all would be well. 

Just as it was planned, the excursion was made; 


BABY FOX AND MRS. BEAR 159 

but all the way down the mountain Mrs. Bear kept 
finding more and more berries to eat. 

‘‘Here I must stop on my way back,” she would 
say. 

“And here is another wonderful patch! Such 
blueberries I have never seen in my whole life.” 

So it was late when at last she came to the clear- 
ing, and Fireflame kissed the motherly Mrs. Bear 
good-by. And it was night before that good lady 
could tear herself from the berry patches and 
trundle herself home to her family. 

Alas! She had lingered too long. Stray dogs 
from the farms had scented her presence; and al- 
though she had followed a brook until she was 
well on her way to the cliff, and her footsteps were 
hard to follow, they had soon learned her where- 
abouts. Back to their masters they had gone, and 
it was scarcely morning when the hunters set out. 
The dogs were barking and their great tongues 
were lolling from their mouths. And the men 
with their rifles, and the knives for skinning the 
bear when they got her, were striding up the moun- 
tain, laughing and shouting as they went. No 
sooner were they near the woods, however, than 
their laughter ceased and the hounds grew deathly 
quiet; for that is the way of the hunter. He must 


i6o FOREST FRIENDS 

be quiet and quick, for he is the companion of 
death, and that terrible creature walks abroad only 
with cruel men who have learned his craft. 

The foxes took in the situation at once. But 
none of them dared to stir. To cross the path of 
those hunters was a terrible risk. They shivered 
and shook in their deep burrows to hear the hounds. 

“It’s lucky for us that the wind blows up the 
mountain,” was all they could say. 

“And what are they after?” cried poor little 
Fireflame. “Whom are they hunting?” 

But then the truth dawned on him. Old 
Grandpa Fox and good Mother Fox were quiet, 
for they did not dare to tell Fireflame that it was 
dear Mrs. Bear who was being trailed. Besides, 
they were ashamed ; for it was plain that something 
must be done, yet no one dared to move. 

“She ought to have crossed and recrossed the 
river,” said Grandpa Fox. “That’s the way to do 
it. But I mistrust she was engaged too long with 
those tempting berries. She was not discreet.” 

“They’ll get her and her young ones too!” 
wailed Mrs. Fox, who was nearly beside herself. 
For it is a terrible thing to know what you ought 
to do, but to be lacking in the courage to do it. 

Little Fireflame could stand it no longer. In a 


BABY FOX AND MRS. BEAR i6i 

bound he was out of the burrow. The whole Fox 
family screamed after him to come back; but he 
paid no heed. He was well up the pasture, and 
far into the woods before their voices ceased to 
ring in his ears. 

It was a test of his wits, and he was very young. 
No dog could overtake him if he ran, and he had 
the start; but to catch up to the hunters and pass 
them, and so reach Mrs. Bear in time, was a task 
that would try the wits of the wisest fox. 

Now a beautiful bird flew past, and although 
he never knew why he did it, the brave little Fire- 
flame followed that bird. Over the brook and 
back again he went, always bearing upward to 
the crest of the mountain. It was not the path by 
which he had come the day before, but higher he 
went and higher, with the far, snowy peak in front 
of him. 

The bird would vanish, but after Fireflame had 
gone as fast as his beautiful legs would carry him 
and when he was so tired that he could not see for 
the mist in his eyes, the silent wings would be be- 
side him, then in front; and Fireflame would bend 
to his race as though it were just begun. 

Soon he was on the narrow edge of the cliff. 
The sun lay full and bright upon the foaming river 


i 62 


FOREST FRIENDS 


far below, and Fireflame recognized the spot. By 
a path that no one knew, he had come to the home 
of Mrs. Bear. There she was, the three little bears 
with her, playing under the fir tree. 

He bounded in upon them, but not before the 
bird had brushed his cheek with its wings and then 
flown away, straight as an arrow, into the sun. 

Fireflame gasped out his news in one breath. 

It was quick work that brought the Bear fam- 
ily to the edge of the river. There Mrs. Bear 
and her cubs began their journey to the fields of 
snow, and the caves that were safely beyond the 
reach of the hunters. She could not thank Fire- 
flame at all. She could only look at him with tears 
of gratitude; while the three little bears, greatly 
confused, were as solemn as though they had never 
played tag in their lives. 

‘^But you will visit us some day,” the biggest 
baby bear said, clinging to Fireflame’s paw, ‘^and 
we will all play together again.” 

The hunters climbed up to the deserted cliff; 
but they never caught the trail of Mrs. Bear again. 
For the good river and the soft snows are friendly 
to the hunted people, and whatever they know they 
take with them to the great ocean, where it is of 
no use to any one. 



Firf.fla^me Gasped Out His News in One Creatii" 


Pa':c 162 



BABY FOX AND MRS. BEAR 163 

Fireflame went home. He knew that he was 
safe, so he took his time. 

But to the end of his days, he never knew what 
bird it was that showed him the way in the dark 
and unfamiliar woods. 


XX 


CHRISTMAS EVE 

ABBY GREEN was alone in the snowy 



street. The wind which blew with gusts 


JH of the finest snow had nearly taken Tabby 
off her feet as she crept around the corner, and she 
was so cold and tired that she could hardly take 
another step. Just as she was preparing to make 
a final jump for the shelter of a flight of steps, a 
great white dog came trotting through the snow 
and, to her great alarm, they ran into each other, 
beg your pardon,” said the dog, in the politest 

way. 

‘‘My fault, I’m sure,” said Tabby Green, for 
she was such a well-bred kitty that no dog, even 
if he had the finest manners in the world, could 
be more courteous than she. 

Then, “Why, bless me!” she exclaimed. “Can 
it be you, dear Bobby Gordon? How glad I am 
to see you once again 1” 

And to show how pleased she was, poor Tabby 
rubbed her thin sides against the good dog’s legs. 


CHRISTMAS EVE 


165 

Together they crouched under the arch of the 
high stone steps, where, from a grating in the side- 
walk, came a breath of good warm air. It was 
close to somebody’s furnace room, and only such 
poor wandering creatures as the hungry cat and 
the dog who had known better days can appreciate 
the air from a warm cellar. 

They sat close together and Tabby tried to purr, 
but she was nearly dead and purr she could not. 

“There, there!” soothed Bobby Gordon, as he 
licked the snow from poor kitty’s back in the 
gentlest way. “I wouldn’t purr. It’s very kind 
of you to try, but it’s a bad thing to do in the open 
air. They say it hurts the voice.” 

“And I have no voice left these days,” admitted 
Tabby sadly. “Really, if it were not for these 
warm cellar-ways and the few stray scraps of food 
that one finds in such shocking places, I wouldn’t 
be alive.” 

“But,” said Bob, “you’re just a poor tramp cat, 
and no one’s bound to kill you. I’m a dog without 
a collar, all alone and afraid to be seen. I can’t 
let any one come near for fear they’ll tell the offi- 
cers about me. Once I had a collar — such a 
beauty, too I But it came off within a week of my 
great misfortune. You know my master went 


i66 


FOREST FRIENDS 


away, and the wicked people in the house were 
going to get rid of me. I knew it. I wasn’t 
wanted any more. I had to go.” 

Great tears stood in Bobby Gordon’s eyes but he 
brushed them away with his paw. 

Tabby was overcome. In all her wanderings 
she had never met a case so sad. 

“Poor Mr. Gordon!” was all she could say. 
“My poor, hunted friend!” 

Then she thought of her own fireside, the cozy 
home that she had known. And simply to think 
of the saucers of cream, and the plates of dainty 
pieces from her mistress’ table, made Tabby 
Green’s poor mouth water. 

“Ah, me!” she sighed, and was pretty near to 
crying when a thought flashed to her mind. 
“There’s one more chance!” she suddenly ex- 
claimed. “You have a fine strong voice, and you 
can make folks hear. Now just below this house, 
where that shoemaker’s sign hangs out, is a little 
girl, and a boy whom I know to be her brother. 
They stopped and spoke to me but this very day. 
I felt that they were kind and understood my case. 
But, although I followed to their door, they didn’t 
see me. And, call out as loudly as I could, my 


CHRISTMAS EVE 167 

poor voice has grown so weak I know they didn’t 
hear me.” 

‘Tt’s little use,” was all the weary dog could say. 
‘T’ve barked at a hundred doors.” 

Kitty waited and yielded to his discouragement. 
Of course it was no use, she thought. They must 
simply wait and wait until the cold and hunger did 
its work. 

The wind howled, and the snow, which was pil- 
ing higher and higher on the steps, was drifting 
around them. 

“We Scotchmen die hard,” said Bob at last. 
“The Gordons are a brave lot. I have to remem- 
ber that.” 

“My mother purred away her life in song,” 
cried Tabby Green. “She was mindful of her kit- 
tens to the last. She said almost in her dying 
breath: ^Remember, children! Never scratch, 
and always dry your tails when you come in out 
of the rain.’ ” 

Suddenly a voice came through the cold night 
air. It was a child’s voice, as sweet and clear as 
a bell. 

“Kitty! Kitty! Come, Kitty, come!” 

In an instant the poor, starved cat and the lame. 


i68 FOREST FRIENDS 

hungry dog looked out and leaped into the drift- 
ing snow. 

A shaft of lamp-light lay wide across the street. 
The door at the shoemaker’s house was open. 
There stood a woman, and, with her, two little 
children, all wrapped in shawls and blankets. 
Their little feet were tucked in bed slippers and 
their eager faces peered into the night. 

“It’s no use, your calling,” said the woman. 
“You were only dreaming. Any cat out in this 
storm is a dead cat now.” 

“Oh, but I know I heard a kitty.” 

“And I heard it, too,” cried the little boy. 

“Yes, and you made me get you out of bed to 
stand here and catch your death o’ cold. I hope 
you are satisfied.” 

Scarcely had she spoken, and just as she was 
about to close the door, Bobby Gordon and Tabby 
Green came bounding past her feet into the hall. 

“ ’Twas naught but the Christmas angels brought 
them here!” the woman said, when they had all 
seated themselves in the little parlor, which was 
the poor shoemaker’s shop and kitchen too. 

The Christmas night was turning into morning. 
Tabby and Bobby Gordon were sleeping by the 
stove, and in the bedroom, tucked deep and warm 


CHRISTMAS EVE 169 

under their blankets, were the two children who 
had called the wanderers in. 

Santa Claus was near, and thousands of lovely 
angels, drifting like the snowflakes, whispered to 
him and beckoned as they flew over the house-tops. 

“This way, this way,” they kept singing. And 
Santa Claus came to the shoemaker’s chimney with 
such a pack of toys as he takes only to the sweetest, 
kindest children in the world. For Santa Claus 
and all the good, sweet spirits know the children 
who love to keep the kitty warm and happy, and 
who would never let the poor, deserted dog go 
friendless. 

“And tell me,” whispered Santa Claus to Tabby 
Green, “tell me every child that so much as said, 
Toor Kitty!’ to you in your wanderings. I shall 
take them what they want the most for Christ- 
mas.” 

So Tabby Green, as fast as she could think, and 
the dog with the fine manners told all they knew 
of the children. And when they had finished, 
Santa told them that before another year was out 
they must have news of other good children, like 
the shoemaker’s little boy and girl. 

So there are many Tabby Greens and Bobby 
Gordons, forsaken and driven and chased by the 


170 FOREST FRIENDS 

cruel people of the world. But sometimes a little 
girl or boy stops to pet the straying animal, or even 
calls it home. And you may be very sure that 
Santa Claus hears of it. 


XXI 


MOTHER RABBIT’S ADVICE TO HER BABIES 

M other rabbit and her five babies 
lived among the sand-hills down by the 
sea. Their cozy home was a small cave 
in the side of the hill, and it had two separate en- 
trances, one at each end. These assured her escape 
in case a dog or a weasel should enter her home. 

One evening, just as the moon was showing it- 
self, big and round and yellow, over the tops of 
the pine-trees. Mother Rabbit led her children out 
of their cozy home to the big out-of-doors, which 
they had only begun to know. Their education 
must begin, she felt, for they were nearly one 
month old and already able to jump and skip 
around as nimbly as Mrs. Fox’s young sons. She 
feared that, if left in ignorance longer, they were 
likely to become overbold. 

^Tt is, first of all, my dears, necessary to be 
cautious in life,” she said. ‘‘You must follow me 
now very quietly to the edge of the wheat-field, 
171 


FOREST FRIENDS 


172 

where we will sit down to talk. There are things 
you must know.’’ 

So they bounded along behind their mother, so 
lightly that they made not a sound on the driest 
leaves of the woodland, and when they came to the 
edge of the field they took the first high jump of 
their lives, for the mother selected a place between 
the bars of the fence and leaped through it swift 
and clean. 

“Do it that way,” she said. “You must never run 
under anything in the dark if you can jump over 
it.” 

Once within the pleasant field, where there was 
so much green wheat that the little rabbits won- 
dered how in the world all of it ever could be eaten, 
Mrs. Rabbit seated her family around her and be- 
gan by telling the babies all about their noble 
father. 

“Ah, my dears, your father was such a rabbit as 
one seldom sees. Such stout legs, and short, too, 
just as they ought to be! Such a long, graceful 
body — and what magnificent ears! They were 
like flowers, and stood up in such a taking fashion ! 
Could you but see him, dancing in the moonlight, 
hitting his heels together in the air, and wagging 
those wonderful ears at the stars, his tail as white 


MOTHER RABBIPS ADVICE 


173 

and fluffy as a full-blown rose, why, my children, 
you would burst with pride. I shall never see his 
like again.” 

‘^But where is Daddy Rabbit now?” the babies 
cried in one voice, fearing that their mother spoke 
with sadness. ^‘He isn’t dead, is he?” 

“Dead? No, no, my dears,” she replied. “He’s 
traveling; you’ll see him yet, I’m sure. He has a 
way of coming back. 

“But in case he doesn’t return, you must know 
how brave he is, and what he can do. For you 
must grow up to be as like him as you can. 

“Any of the neighbors can tell you of his clever 
ways, and his bravery. He rid this field of a dread- 
ful dog, once, and the history of these parts will 
always relate that exploit. It made him famous.” 

At this the little rabbits cocked their ears in won- 
der. 

“You see,” Mother Rabbit went on, “it was this 
way: Once he returned to his burrow below the 
hill ovei there and discovered, by means of his keen 
sense of smell, that a terrier dog was in the burrow. 
He immediately called for a friend, and together 
they closed up the entrance to the burrow and 
smothered the dog to death. That’s what I call 
bravery. And that’s the kind of father you had. 


FOREST FRIENDS 


174 

The world will expect much of children of your 
parentage. 

‘Tour father and I first met on the hillside one 
evening, and we liked each other at once. Every 
evening after, we would meet out there to play 
hide-and-seek in the grass and sand. Perhaps he 
will come to see you some day, and I want you to be 
smart and handsome, so that he will be proud of 
you. 

“But I have said enough, dear Jacks, and now I 
must teach you some of the wise things he knew. 
He learned at an early age that each rabbit must 
procure his own food, and has many foes to shun. 
To do these things one must have a sharp wit 

“Always sleep during the day while other ani- 
mals are prowling about, and come out only eve- 
nings when it is cool, to seek your food. Young 
wheat, fresh onions, lettuce and cabbages make 
splendid food for rabbits. Of course, it is rather 
dangerous to cultivate such expensive tastes, for 
lettuce and onions usually grow only in gardens 
and people are apt to set traps to catch you. So be 
careful never to go near a trap, or bite at anything 
that looks as though man had placed it there for 
you. It is said that your father prided himself on 
destroying traps. 


MOTHER RABBIPS ADVICE 


175 

“Our family is blessed by being both watchful 
and swift. Just watch me how I can run.” 

Mother Rabbit sprang to her feet, and over the 
field she sped like lightning. The children stared 
in wonderment, and then shouted for glee at their 
mother’s rapidity. Finally Mrs. Rabbit returned 
as quickly as she had departed. 

“Now, that is the way you must learn to run. 
And the next most necessary thing for you to ac- 
quire is the ability to stand on your hind legs like 
this.” 

To their amusement. Mother Rabbit stood up 
like a walking dog or a bear. 

“An enemy can be seen at a long distance from 
such a position,” she explained; “and it is well 
never to run until you have taken in the situation. 
Many rabbits have lost their lives by failing to ob- 
serve that simple precaution. Once your Uncle 
Cotton heard a dog coming, and turned to run in 
the opposite direction without having stood up to 
survey the land. As a result, we found only his 
bones on the hillside the next day. It is supposed 
that he ran right into the jaws of another dog. 
Dogs are clever and often hunt together. 

“But that’s enough for the first lesson,” she con- 
cluded. “Some evening we’ll come again and I’ll 


FOREST FRIENDS 


176 

teach you to dance, and we’ll play till the moon 
goes down in the West.” 

They jumped up, skimmed through the fence, 
and ran after their mother, who had them home 
and tucked them in bed almost before they knew it. 


XXII 


THE MICE AND BABY STORK 

1 FIND it very hard,” said the learned watch- 
dog, ‘‘to speak well of the rats and the mice.” 
He was talking with his visitor. Professor 
Screech Owl, who perched on the peak of the 
kitchen roof and was engaged with him in a 
pleasant exchange of views and ideas. The moon 
was clear and everything was very still. All the 
world seemed asleep but the owl and the dog, and 
they were talking of many matters. For Professor 
Screech Owl was a knowing bird and he had, more- 
over, the most learned relatives. 

“Of course, you know more than I do,” Collie 
Dog hastened to add. 

Professor Screech Owl nodded. 

“And you may have heard in your travels of 
something which credits the mice with being other 
than thieves and rogues. But for my part, I am 
skeptical of all the good I hear of them.” 

“There are mice, and there are mice,” said the 
177 


FOREST FRIENDS 


178 

Professor. For this is one of the best ways to open 
a subject and draw a distinction. “I have rarely 
inquired into their morals, preferring to take them 
as I find them. In the matter of one’s living one 
must not be too squeamish. Probably I have eaten 
moral mice and immoral mice, with indifference. 
But I have heard that the mice in Belgium are the 
gentlest and sweetest of creatures. Have you 
heard of the Belgium mice, Mr. Dog?” 

This was the point to which Collie Dog had 
drawn his visitor with intent. For no matter what 
subject you brought up, if you passed it over to Pro- 
fessor Screech Owl and showed him the respect and 
patience which is due to scholarly persons, he 
would refresh your mind with wonderful facts and 
you would be vastly improved and informed when 
he finished. So Collie Dog admitted that he was 
no book dog, and knew precious little about any- 
thing. This was not so, for he knew a great deal 
about sheep, the pasturing of cows, and the time for 
getting the mail, and he knew that the buggy meant 
business, and the surrey meant church, and he knew 
where his mistress kept the chocolate creams. 
Also he knew why the cook left, but he never told. 
But he pretended that blankness of mind which is 
a humility pleasing to superior students. 


THE MICE AND BABY STORK 179 

Screech Owl stared at the moon as though to re- 
call what he could from his vast store of learning. 

‘‘The dates have escaped me,” he began, “but it is 
the nature of the event, not the time which is im- 
portant. 

“Once long ago, as I was told by the great Arctic 
Owl, who is a sort of cousin of mine, the mice in the 
city of Ghent entered into a sort of league with the 
storks. Ghent, as you know, is in Belgium.” 

This was news to Collie Dog, but he wagged his 
tail as if to approve. He was glad to know that 
Ghent was in Belgium, and he wished to seem 
pleased. 

“Don’t wag your tail I” Screech Owl spat out at 
him. “I’m telling you history; I’m not asking you 
to have a bone. That’s no way to act when I’m 
lecturing!” 

Poor Collie Dog wished to laugh, but he only sat 
still and looked humbly at the conceited little owl 
on the peak of the barn. 

Professor Screech Owl suddenly grew quite him- 
self again, apologized for his agitation, and re- 
sumed: 

“The storks are a noble lot, and have been re- 
nowned in Egypt and on the Continent. They 
dwell on the chimney-pots, I’m told, or build on 


FOREST FRIENDS 


180 

the edges of steeples and such. Very proud they 
are, and given to the practise of medicine. The 
cranes in the country make great pretense of being 
cousins of the stork. But we all know the differ- 
ence, — ^we who have traveled. Ha! Hal” 

Screech Owl screamed a terrible laugh. Collie 
Dog, to be polite, joined in; but he stopped short 
when Screech Owl’s feathers began to ruffle up. 

^Tn Ghent, long ago,” the Professor went on, 
^‘the mice that lived in the barn of the mayor’s place 
were many. They overran it and lived under the 
very eaves as well as in the cellars. And those 
nearest the roof became great friends of the storks 
who dwelt on the gables and chimneys. 

“Now, so the story runs, the mayor’s barn caught 
fire. The good lady stork had but just left her 
nest. The storks, you know, go far out into the 
country to get their food. I think it very foolish 
of them to live in the cities. But Mrs. Stork took 
her chances, as all mothers do when they leave their 
young ones for any length of time. 

“Dr. Stork, the father of this particular family, 
was away on medical matters, and so the baby was 
alone. You can imagine what Mrs. Stork felt 
when she came flying toward the city and saw 
smoke pouring from the roof of the mayor’s barn.” 


THE MICE AND BABY STORK i8i 


Collie Dog scented the drift of the story, and 
grew suddenly impatient for the slow Professor to 
reach the point. 

“And was the baby stork burned to death?” he 
interrupted. 

Professor Screech Owl only looked down and 
cleared his throat. 

“The mice,” he said, “are credited with singular 
humanity. They scrambled all around and in and 
out of the nest, and at last they grabbed the baby 
stork and dragged him down to the edge of the 
roof.” 

“And then?” exclaimed Collie Dog, now really 
excited. “What then? Did he fall off and get 
killed after all?” 

“The roofs of the houses in Ghent are not very 
high,” came from Professor Screech Owl, in the 
deepest of tones, “but they are very steep. A plank 
was leaning against the wall and they slid him 
down on that, so that he reached the ground in 
safety. 

“Since then the storks give all the feathers they 
can spare to the mice; and now these frisky 
creatures sleep on down. That is, the mice in 
Belgium do.” 

Professor Screech Owl came to a sudden stop and 


i 82 


FOREST FRIENDS 


watched Collie Dog. Seeing his audience was 
profoundly impressed, he then went on: 

“Those who were witnesses to this rescue say 
that Mrs. Stork’s excitement was terrible. She 
went to Egypt for a year to recover her nerves — ” 
An unearthly screech pierced the night. The 
Professor and Collie Dog jumped in surprise. 
Old Tom Cat, who had listened to all this as he sat 
on the doorstep in the dark, was trying to laugh. 
He was also making remarks about owls and mice 
in general. But just then the master of the house 
threw open the window and expressed his views. 

Collie Dog retired quickly to his kennel to think 
over this wonderful chapter of history; and wise 
Professor Screech Owl flew silently from the peak 
of the barn to his nest in the hickory woods. 



“They Graiseed the Baby Stork and Dragged Him Down to the 
Edge of the Roof” 


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XXIII 


MRS. BOB-WHITE AND THE HUNTING DOG 
T the very peep of day Collie Dog and 



Setter Pup started out on a hunting trip of 


1 V their own. Collie Dog called the place 
^^my farm” and he had told his friend of all the 
wonderful sights there were to be seen on the place 
by a dog who could travel alone and do as he 
wanted. It was his habit, he said, to be abroad 
very early; sometimes, indeed, he would run over 
the fields and along the shore, or back into the 
woodland, for miles and miles before breakfast. 

‘^And what do you do that for?” Setter Pup 
asked. For this youngster was just from the city, 
and he was not used to these country ways. ^We 
never get up until long after the man with the milk 
cans has gone by the door, and the postman has 
come and gone,” he yawned. “That’s the proper 
thing in town.” 

Collie Dog laughed in a courteous way. 

“And we get up before the milk cans start for 


FOREST FRIENDS 


184 

town,” he said. ‘That is, some of us do. But 
they’ll take you out early enough when the hunting 
begins. And you’ll be pointing birds all day in the 
fields and the swamps.” 

Setter Pup waved his tail proudly, for he meant 
to be a great hunter. That was why they had him 
in the country now — to teach him all sorts of things 
about guns and what to do when he smelt a covey 
of birds. 

But Collie Dog was no hunter, being more of a 
scholar and a poet. His master, at any rate, had 
read him a great deal of poetry. And much of the 
poetry had been of a nature to discourage hunting; 
which was just what the doggie’s master liked to 
do. He was thoroughly in sympathy with his pet, 
who couldn’t endure a gun, either the sight or the 
sound of it. But, much as the gentleman knew 
about the fields and the woods, he would have 
known more could he have understood what Collie 
Dog would have loved to tell him. For that gentle 
dog was on the best of terms with every living 
creature for miles around. His early morning ex- 
peditions were always but so many rounds of visits. 

Consequently, the newcomer, this eager and 
noisy young setter, was to make many new acquaint- 
ances on this daybreak excursion with Collie Dog. 


MRS. BOB-WHITE 


185 

Down the lane from the barn to the pasture they 
romped, the dew drenching their flanks as they 
brushed the tall weeds and bushes. Setter Pup, 
with his ears flapping in excitement, was plunging 
heedlessly ahead when Collie Dog called him back. 

^‘Go easy here ! We are sure to hear something,” 
Collie Dog whispered. 

And suddenly, while they walked almost on tip- 
toe, there came from the very edge of the field, a 
clear, ringing call : 

'^Bobl Bob! Bobr 

‘Why, who can be down here in the hayfield at 
this time of the morning?” Setter Pup asked in sur- 
prise. 

“Just wait!” laughed Collie Dog, delighted. 

^^Bob, Bob, Bob-Whiter 

The voice was as clear as a boy’s. 

“That’s my best friend out here,” Collie Dog ex- 
plained. “It’s little Mr. Partridge.” 

Then very quickly the beautiful, trim little Mr. 
Partridge hopped clear of the tangled grass and 
stood gaily on the fence-rail. He was speckled 
and shapely and his eyes were full of wonderful 
humor. But he caught sight of the strange dog, 
and was gone in a second. Then, to Setter Pup’s 
great astonishment, there were many little voices, 


i86 


FOREST FRIENDS 


and wild scuttlings in the very path ahead of him. 
And two beautiful partridges, their wings appar- 
ently broken, were hobbling along almost before 
his very nose. They were dying, as it seemed. 

Setter Pup was all for seizing them. Two such 
crippled creatures were easy prey. But his in- 
stincts were, after all, of another sort; for, although 
he had never done it before, he stood stock still and 
pointed his nose straight at the birds, his tail 
stretched out like a long plume behind him. 

Collie Dog shook with laughter. 

^Well, that gun shooting master of yours would 
be proud of you if he could see you now,” he said. 
‘‘You’re pointing straight as a weather vane. But 
we’re not out hunting birds this morning. Come 
here, and I’ll show you something.” 

Setter Pup dropped his tail and stepped back. 
Then Collie Dog came softly up to the little birds 
that were cowering in the path. They knew him 
well enough. Even if he was a dog, he was a 
friend; and if there is a creature who knows a 
friend and would be on terms of friendship with 
the whole world it is Mr. Bob-White. 

They were even pleased to meet young Setter 
Pup, when they found out that he was staying at 
the farm. They could not believe that a personal 


MRS. BOB-WHITE 187 

friend of their wonderful Collie Dog could be ilh^ 
disposed to such as the partridge family. ^ 

And Mr. Bob-White talked about ^^ur farm” 
exactly as though it were his own. He said that he 
and his family could surely keep down the potato 
bugs that year; and that if it could only be known 
what his intentions were in this matter of eating up 
the pests that canker and destroy, he was sure no 
one would want to kill him. 

^‘You always say that, poor Mr. Bob-White, and 
how I pity you,” the gentle Collie Dog replied. 
For he was as quick to weep as to laugh, being so 
refined a dog. “And it’s a shame. My master 
reads to me all about you. And we get very indig- 
nant when we think of how you are the one thing 
that these farmers can depend upon to eat up more 
bugs than anybody else could ever devour. You’re 
so much better than poison and all the rest of the 
truck they sprinkle around.” 

“Yes ; the poison just washes oflf in the rain. My 
family, if only we could be let alone, would do it 
all. Didn’t you tell me that my cousin down in 
Texas ate up all the boll weevils in a county full of 
cotton?” 

“That’s the truth,” answered Collie Dog. 
“Master read it to me. But you’re safe enough on 


i88 


FOREST FRIENDS 


this farm anyway. You know that. My friend 
Setter Pup is not going to hunt here at all.’’ 

“And I shall never hunt partridges— never!” de- 
clared Setter Pup, who was sadly distressed. “I 
wish I had never been born” — he was crying now — 
“if I have to hunt down such folks as Mr. Par- 
tridge.” For poor Setter Pup had found that he 
possessed a heart; and that discovery is the most 
distressing one in the world. 

“Oh, you’ll get over that,” Collie Dog com- 
forted him. “You’ll have to. Your master will 
attend to you. But I’m sorry for you. And just 
look at these baby partridges.” 

One by one, as Mrs. Partridge had clucked to 
them, in a little voice like the ticking of a tiny 
clock, they had crept up to her. Ten little chicks 
there were, of a light brown, and nothing but fluffy 
down and beady eyes. One of them hopped right 
out from in front of Setter Pup, where it had hid- 
den under a leaf. 

“Good gracious!” he exclaimed. “There was 
that chicken, and I never saw it at all !” 

“No,” Collie Dog replied; “you would never 
guess where they go to when their mother gives the 
alarm. And then she runs off and tempts you to 
kill her. She hobbles and cries and lies down to 


MRS. BOB-WHITE 


189 

die right at your feet. My own mother, who was a 
Scottish noblewoman, being an Argyle, used to say 
that she never saw such a wonderfully devoted 
mother as Mrs. Bob-White.” 

With a gay farewell to Mr. Partridge, the 
sprightly dog was off. And Setter Pup went rac- 
ing after him. For there was much to see, and the 
sun was already clear and golden. The grass shone 
in waves of green, and as the dew dried there came 
the loveliest odors of wild honeysuckle and clover. 
It was a time to be gay, and Collie Dog did not 
want to have his young friend depressed. There 
were some wonderful mud-holes to visit, where 
they could get just as cool and as dirty as they 
pleased. 

“And when the mud dries off,” Collie Dog ex- 
plained, as they plunged through the bushes, “your 
coat will shine as though it had been brushed.” 

It was a wonderful romp that they had in the 
mud-hole, deep in the swampy meadow, under the 
blackberry vines. And when they came out, dis- 
gracefully dirty, to dry themselves under a China- 
berry tree, they were rolling over and over on the 
grass, when a funny little voice called out from the 
branches overhead : 

“Hello, Mr. Dog!” 


190 


FOREST FRIENDS 


Setter Pup jumped to his feet; but Collie Dog 
only looked up into the tree. 

“’Morning, friend ’Possum; and how’s your 
family to-day?” 

“Oh, they’re doing fine. Twelve of them and 
all getting plump. We like your turnip patch 
very much.” 

Then he laughed ; a squeaky little laugh it was ; 
and Collie Dog seemed to enjoy the joke too, for 
he sat up with a smile. 

“Come on down and let’s see you die,” he re- 
quested. “My friend has never seen a ’possum 
play dead.” 

“No, indeed, Mr. Collie. I don’t know your 
friend — and I don’t think I care to. He’s a hunt- 
ing dog. But I’ll die right here on this branch, 
if that will amuse you.” 

So Mr. ’Possum threw himself into a wonderful 
attitude and looked as dead as dead could be. His 
head hung over the branch and his mouth lolled 
open, and his little paws were all curled up. 

“How queer!” Setter Pup exclaimed. “I sup- 
pose he’s satisfied that nobody but a buzzard would 
touch him now. What a dandy trick!” 

“It fools ’em, all right,” said Collie Dog, who 
always delighted in this performance. 


MRS. BOB-WHITE 


191 


Then Mr. ’Possum winked a sly wink and slid 
like a big rat along the branch to a hollow place in 
the tree. 

‘‘He’s gone in. Probably his wife wanted him.” 

And then Collie Dog was off again, bounding 
and racing across the field, with Setter Pup keep- 
ing beside him. 

Miles they went, through the country. Young 
Setter Pup saw more than he ever had guessed 
could be seen. There was Mr. Blacksnake, who 
raced like mad over the leaves, making an astonish- 
ing noise. He carried his head very high and went 
such a zigzag course that the dogs lost sight of 
him. 

“He’s an ugly fellow, too, but he can’t hurt you. 
He makes a funny noise with his tail, rattling it on 
the leaves if you corner him. He wants you to 
think he’s a rattlesnake. But it’s only a clever 
trick,” said Collie Dog. “Sometimes on that 
sandy piece of road we’ve just passed, we’ll come 
across Mr. Hognose. He’s a queer little snake. 
He can scare you terribly by puffing and blowing, 
so that you would think he was very dangerous. 
But he can’t bite at all, nor hurt you as much as a 
cat. He plays off at being dead too, just like Mr. 
’Possum. But he never crawls out till the sun is 


192 


FOREST FRIENDS 


high. He likes the heat. I’ve met him a great 
many times, but always when it was hot.” 

By this time it was a glorious morning, and as 
the two dogs trotted down the wood road and along 
the river bank, the birds were calling from every 
side. 

‘T like to come this way,” Collie Dog went on. 
“There’s a redbird, a very aristocratic cardinal, 
who flies ahead of me every time. He’s had a 
whole story written about himself. Master’s read 
it aloud to me. Does your master read aloud to 
you?” 

Setter Pup was somewhat embarrassed. 

“We read about guns and cartridges and 
Canadian guides, and fishing tackle,” he admitted. 

“H’ml” mused his companion. “Destructive, of 
course. Right in your line. But not my style. 
We prefer the other kind, my master and I. But 
not everybody can be a poet, of course.” 

Just then the cardinal-bird darted out of the 
honeysuckle and flew ahead of them, and in an in- 
stant a brilliant bluebird followed him. 

“They fly together just that way. Master says 
they must like each other’s color. Aren’t they 
beautiful?” 

And then, before they knew it, the birds were 


MRS. BOB-WHITE 


193 


gone; and Setter Pup was surprised to see that this 
river path had been the way home, for they were 
almost at the farm door. 

“If I could only go hunting with you instead of 
with those guides and guns,” Setter Pup began ; for 
evidently there was something on his mind and he 
wanted to talk. 

But Collie Dog just wagged his tail. He under- 
stood. There was nothing to be said, for a dog 
owes everything to his master, and there are many 
kinds of masters. Besides, the door was open and 
there were voices upstairs. Setter Pup’s owner 
was calling across the hall to his host. 

“He ought to make a fine pointer. His mother 
was a prize bird dog, you know.” 

Poor Setter Pup looked wistfully at Collie Dog 
as they flopped down on the floor. 

And Collie was truly distressed. But, then, as 
he often asked himself: 

“What could a poor dog do?” 


XXIV 

MRS. POLAR BEAR’S ADVENTURE 

T he long, dark winter was on the wane. 
Months of cold starlight and terrific winds, 
with numberless storms of heavy snow, had 
gone by. Little by little the streak of light on the 
horizon, the thin shadows which it cast over the 
snowfields, and the gentler quality of the air in- 
creased ; so that every one who lived in this far Arc- 
tic region stirred in his winter sleep and there was 
preparation for a short and very busy summer. 

Some of the animals had been abroad, indeed, 
throughout the whole dark night of the polar 
winter; such of them for instance as the lovely 
white fox and the great polar bear. For it was not 
their custom to crawl away, as many did, into the 
deep snow-banks, there to sleep it out; for they 
knew that even this season of blackness and appal- 
ling cold had plenty of food for them, and they 
were always insatiably hungry. 

But Mr. Bear’s wife was of a different turn of 


194 


MRS. POLAR BEAR’S ADVENTURE 195 

mind, and although she knew that her husband 
would not provide for her quite as she would like 
to be fed, she was willing to go deep into the snow 
and dig out for herself a warm bed away beneath 
the surface. There she had stayed, never so much 
as venturing to the opening after the real night had 
set in. 

And there her cubs were born. Two of them 
there were. The good Mrs. Bear was so delighted 
with their beauty that she was impatient for the 
warm days to come when she could take them out 
and show them to her relatives and friends. 

^‘Perhaps, too, their father will be back by the 
time summer comes,” she thought. 

And then she was suddenly glad that he was not 
around just now; for he was very quick-tempered, 
and if the babies annoyed him at all, he would be 
pretty sure to cuff them. And one blow of Mr. 
Bear’s paw would finish the career of any baby bear 
in the world. 

So the two little creatures, clad in the whitest of 
fur from head to foot, their claws as black as ebony, 
and their wide eyes as yellow as amber, lay 
snuggled against the great warm body of their 
mother for all the weeks of the departing winter. 

Suddenly, as they rolled over and looked upward 


FOREST FRIENDS 


196 

through the snow cavern, they saw for the first time 
what seemed to them a great big eye staring down 
at them. 

“That’s only the hole in the roof,” Mrs. Bear ex- 
plained. “And pretty soon you will see that it is 
all blue and beautiful above that window — and 
then we will go out and away.” 

What that meant they did not know; for life 
so far as they had known it consisted of meals and 
sleep and endless playtime on the icy floor of their 
cavern. But they were to know more about it very 
soon. A white wing flashed by one morning, and 
a land voice called down the depths of their cave. 

It was Mr. Burgomaster, the good-natured gull. 
He had come purposely to call on Mrs. Bear, for 
he had two stirring pieces of information to give 
her. 

He perched by the edge of her skylight, and 
wasted no words in relating the news. 

“There’s a whale being driven ashore; and the 
mists have hidden the birds.” 

He was gone before Mrs. Bear could so much as 
thank him for coming; and she was, indeed, deeply 
obliged. No one but good Mr. Burgomaster 
would ever have taken such pains. 

What he said sounded strange enough, but it 


MRS. POLAR BEAR’S ADVENTURE 197 

meant everything to Mrs. Bear. When a whale 
was disabled in the far depths of the sea, or had 
been caught in the currents and gales in such a way 
that he must surely drift to shore, he was as good 
as dead and devoured. For in shallow water he 
would be helpless and once his enormous bulk 
was stranded on the rocks or the jagged capes of 
ice he could only give himself up to his enemies. 

Mrs. Bear, however, would have been very 
cautious about venturing to the scene of the 
banquet, if the great flocks of birds, which were 
sure to be on hand, were not hidden from view as 
they hovered above it. Clouds of excited gulls 
that came nearer and nearer to the shore were a sig- 
nal of what was about to happen. And the bears, 
the foxes, and the wolves were not the only ones 
who knew it. Men, with their ferocious packs of 
dogs, their long lassos of walrus hide, and their 
terrible spears, knew well enough what the noisy 
birds were announcing. 

But all would be well if the fogs hung low, and 
the gathering flocks of sea-birds were thereby hid- 
den. 

Mrs. Bear explained the situation to her cubs. 

^‘Of course, your mother would not have built 
her nursery here,” she ended, “if she thought those 


FOREST FRIENDS 


198 

terrible creatures with the wolfish dogs and the 
ropes were within miles and miles of the spot. But 
you can never tell when they may turn up. They 
come with their dogs over endless tracks of snow 
and ice to find us, and they travel fast. You must 
lie as quietly as you can while I am gone. Amuse 
yourselves in only the quietest way. Don’t call out 
at all; and go to sleep again, like good children.” 

With that Mrs. Bear rose to her hind feet and 
reached upward along the snow walls of her house. 
Then, balancing herself on a ridge of the ice which 
was for all the world like a side shelf, she made a 
ponderous leap through the opening into broad 
daylight. For at last it was the real day, and a 
glorious glimmer of sunlight behind the fogs 
showed that summer was coming. 

It was good to breathe the free air, and Mrs. 
Bear shook herself violently to straighten out the 
creases of her heavy coat. She would have liked 
to roar, loud and long, but she was trained by ex- 
perience never to speak in a fog. 

“You can’t tell who’s hearing you,” her own 
mother used to say. 

So she only trundled her mighty bulk downward 
across the ice and snow, to its very edge, where it 
suddenly broke off and formed an embankment. 


MRS. POLAR BEAR’S ADVENTURE 199 

Below this there was a narrow beach, or what ap- 
peared to be one — a strip of confused and tumbled 
blocks of ice and jagged rocks. 

There was a sudden whizzing of wings above her 
head, and the wailing cries of a hundred little gulls 
and the many crowds of birds that were hurrying to 
eat of whale fat. Mrs. Bear broke off in their di- 
rection ; and soon the sound of snarling voices, the 
yelps of the quarrelsome foxes, and the vicious 
bark of the wolves met her ears. Yes, she was none 
too early, for evidently the assemblage of animals, 
all as famished as herself, were fighting over the 
repast. 

They were not so polite to Mrs. Bear as they 
might have been, for they begrudged her any share 
of the whale’s body. But she paid little attention 
to any one, and went to work lustily on her first 
meal of the season. 

After the first mouthfuls, however, she felt won- 
derfully good-humored ; for such is the effect of a 
meal, and it is pleasant to stop and talk a bit when 
you know there is more to follow. 

‘T must thank you, Mr. Burgomaster,” was her 
first remark. “You were kind to call me in time. 
This is a good beginning to the summer.” 

The white-winged gull, largest of all the birds 


200 


FOREST FRIENDS 


that were present, and by far the best mannered, 
only begged Mrs. Bear to remember that they had 
been friends for many years. 

“And I propose to name my children,” Mrs. 
Bear announced, as this delicious dinner began to 
increase her fine spirits, “I propose to name the 
babies after you and your wife: Odin and Olga, 
That’s what they shall be.” 

Mr. Burgomaster was at a loss how to express his 
gratitude for this compliment. But he needed to 
say little, for such a generous tribute is not repaid 
in words. 

Something he said later on, however, in which he 
quoted Dr. Penguin, brought forth her assent on 
the subject of eating too much, for she added, 
“True, true, it is not wise to overeat at your first 
meal of the year. A relative of mine did that 
once, and was unable to climb over the path to his 
door.” 

So, taking as goodly an amount of provender 
with her as she could carry away, Mrs. Bear went 
home to feed her babies. They were far more in- 
terested in this new and appetizing breakfast than 
in the names which she gave them, you may be 
sure ; and from then until the whale was used up 
and only his bones were left to dry in the winds. 


MRS. POLAR BEAR’S ADVENTURE 201 

Mrs. Bear was continually carrying meals to her 
cave. 

By this time the winter was gone, and the roof 
of the snowhouse fell in. The melting drifts 
drenched every ledge and cranny of their home, 
and it was time to be wandering. 

^^You must do exactly as I tell you,” Mrs. Bear 
kept saying, “and you must never stray from me a 
minute. For we are going to start on our journey, 
and there will be a great many dangers to guard 
against.” 

When little Odin and Olga trotted along beside 
their mother, with the whole world before them, 
and a keen appetite with them, they were as alert 
and excited as any two bears in the world could be. 

The great rolling, blue water, the ice that floated 
on its surface and shone like white ivory in the sun, 
the patches of green grass on the sides of the hills, 
and the rocks black with snow water, made a daz- 
zling scene. 

Their long day began with a wonderful feat on 
the part of Mother Bear. After they had swum to 
a low, wide ice floe, which was a little way from 
shore, and Odin and Olga were just learning to use 
the hairy pads of their feet in climbing the sides of 
the small iceberg, Mrs. Bear gave a sudden plunge 


202 


FOREST FRIENDS 


into the water, and disappeared from view. She 
swam far out, her nose barely coming to the sur- 
face, and the rest of her body entirely concealed. 
Then, rising to the surface, she brought back with 
her a huge fish which she had stunned with a blow 
of her mighty paw. 

^Tt’s all in the way you slide into the water,” she 
said; and then, as they ate greedily of this morsel, 
she told them of diving for sea-lions and of captur? 
ing them by coming up from under the prey. 

^‘You will swim under water great distances, as 
soon as you learn to hunt,” she said, “and you will 
learn to make no noise about it.” 

This was the truth, as not only the seals and the 
sea-lions, but plenty of the great fish, could bear 
witness. 

But, as events of the day were to turn, little Odin 
and Olga were near to never growing up at all ; for 
the very danger which their mother most dreaded 
was speedily approaching. While they were play- 
ing first on the ice cakes and then on the shore, and 
Mrs. Bear had about made up her mind that they 
would stay that night at a point not far distant, 
where she saw many sea-birds fluttering, and 
where, she reasoned, the fishing and seal hunting 


MRS. POLAR BEAR’S ADVENTURE 203 

might be good, the hunters with their trained dogs 
were fast approaching the very spot. 

For your Eskimos have their own way of reading 
the signs ; and as many birds had been flocking in 
this direction, the men had steadily pursued the 
trail. Day after day they had traveled, and they 
felt sure that they were coming upon at least a herd 
of seals or of walruses. And they hoped, of course, 
to bag a great white bear. 

But Odin’s mother had assured herself that there 
was no danger, or it would have been revealed dur- 
ing the time that the whale had attracted such 
crowds of her brother animals. She did not per- 
ceive that her enemies knew exactly how prone the 
well-fed bear is to linger near the spot of her recent 
feedings. 

^^That is just the place to spend the night, out 
there,” she said ; “for on those points that reach out 
into the sea, you can escape by land or by water, as 
you have to. Remember that, too, children.” 

Little Olga stopped to rub her head at this. She 
was trying to remember so many things! Mrs. 
Bear told her it was nothing, and that learning 
things was the whole of life anyway. 

When Mrs. Bear and her twins reached the icy 


204 


FOREST FRIENDS 


point, there were the friendly Penguins to meet 
them and to exclaim over the children. They were 
having a fine visit when suddenly a dull roar far 
below them on the shore made every one sit up and 
listen. 

It came again and lasted longer. It was a new 
sound to the children, but Mrs. Bear recognized it. 

‘^That’s an iceberg breaking up,” she said at last. 
“Not a pleasing sound, but one you’ll soon get used 
to.” 

Night came and they curled up, all three, in a 
snug corner under the ice shelves of the point. 
The wind was high and the sea was noisy, but they 
were too well tucked away to care. 

And they little dreamed of what was going on 
around them. 

For scarcely had the sun gone down, when the 
Eskimos with their teams of wolfish dogs were on 
the spot. Little by little they had crept to the end 
of the point, and one by one they stationed them- 
selves at intervals to wait, like so many sentinels, 
for the morning. 

Mrs. Bear would never reach the water alive; 
and escape back to the mainland was impossible. 
There were enough dogs and men on hand to cover 
the avenues of escape. 


MRS. POLAR BEAR’S ADVENTURE 205 

Before little Odin and Olga were awake suffi- 
ciently to see anything at all, Mrs. Bear had faced 
her first ambushed enemies. From where the cubs 
cowered in their corner, they saw their mother rear 
on her hind legs and then drop with a terrible 
force, hitting the dogs right and left as she landed 
among them. There were thunderous noises, and 
her own mighty roars were almost drowned by the 
snarling of the dogs and the shouting of the men, 
who were fast closing in. She was bleeding al- 
ready and several of the dogs were lying dead 
around her. 

Mrs. Bear stood truly at bay. One man, more 
courageous than the rest, came running up with 
his pointed spear, ready to take aim. A terrific 
noise arrested him — a noise in which all else was 
nothing. The land seemed to reel and topple ; the 
great ice shelves came crashing down. 

Men and dogs ran for their lives; and to save 
themselves they plunged bodily into the sea. For 
the whole point of ice had broken from the main- 
land and, like a ship that is rocking and righting 
itself, it was sending up mighty waves and eddies 
on every side. 

The motions were less gigantic after a while, and 
the new iceberg had found itself. Already it was 


2o6 


FOREST FRIENDS 


moving forward, and the wind was driving it foot 
by foot into the outgoing tide. 

Mrs. Bear knew precisely what to do. Twice in 
her life she had traveled on ice floes, though never 
on so large a one as this. 

‘^Here we are, and here we stay,” she said. ^‘By 
and by we’ll come to islands, or so close to shore 
that we can swim back to land. It will be a long ^ 
time before we are carried out beyond this gulf, 
and we’re sure to escape before then.” 

She was a little too cheerful, perhaps, for some 
of her own kin had gone that way so far into the 
great southerly current that they were never seen 
again. But Mrs. Bear was one of those happy be- 
ings who always look for the best, not the worst; 
and she was too joyous over this sudden deliverance 
to heed any new perplexity. 

Long weeks afterward, when Mother Bear’s 
wounds were healed, and Odin and Olga had in- 
deed learned how to live by diving and hunting 
under water, they came to a narrow bay where the 
land was green on both sides. The distance from 
their iceberg was but little; and they plunged in, 
while Mr. Burgomaster circled over them ex- 
citedly. He was a wonderful mariner, Mr. Burgo- 
master, and, being such a good friend, he had flown 


MRS. POLAR BEAR’S ADVENTURE 207 

back and forth over land and sea, following them 
on their icy ship. 

“You’ll know where you are, Mrs. Bear, when 
this fog lifts,” he said. “You will find that you 
have come to a beautiful shore where there are ber- 
ries and all kinds of refreshing things that bears 
like. It was a good day that the iceberg started 
you on your trip.” 

“All things, Mr. Burgomaster,” said wonderful 
Mother Bear, as she crawled out of the water and 
shook her shaggy fur, “all things happen for the 
bestl” 


THE END 


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